Beautiful Intense Fun Academic Excellent...Download this issue! The Grinnell Magazine is now available online in .pdf form Departments Student Musings..... inside front Things I Need

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What Makes Grinnell Distinctive?

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Student Musings

1. SAT 2s. 2. Get leadership position. 3. PRACTICE INTERVIEW!!!

These items head a document on my computer called “Things I Need to Worry About.” I created the list in fall of 2009, when college application season was in full swing and the title wasn’t funny. I’m not usually a multiple-exclamation-points kind of girl, but the worry that my entire future could be jeopardized by an overlooked deadline led to deranged punctuation. In fact, every college-related thing I did carried an implicit !!!.

4. Ask for recs (who??!) 5. Send midterm grades (MUST be higher!!!)

Deranged, indeed. I scoured message boards filled with acronyms that read like military code: “My S is applying ED2 to an LAC, he’s NMF but TBH his ECs aren’t great,” wrote tense parents with user names like universityfreak23. [Translation: “My son is applying early decision two to a liberal arts college, he’s a National Merit Finalist but to be honest his extra curriculars aren’t great.”] Whenever I talked to my parents, the conversation had the emotional charge of a Super Bowl halftime speech: We all are in this together and it really doesn’t matter if we win or lose … as long as we definitely win.

“Applying to college is stressful” is not exactly profound, but these remnants of my neuroticism surprise me now. They seem torn from some melodramatic Lifetime TV movie called Acceptance, not my own life.

Fall 2009 turned to winter 2010. Somehow I managed to turn in every last self-promoting syllable to every one of the schools to which I applied. I guess some things happened in the news, but I wouldn’t know about them. I could only wait. March arrived, and letters began to roll in. There were acceptances and rejections, and more symbolic paper-ripping than I knew myself to be capable of. My list of things to worry about now contained only one item:

6. DECIDE!!!!

Finally, in April, grasping a slim envelope with nail-bitten fingers, I did just that. My deposit to Grinnell was in the mail, and the whole process was finally finished, though I still wasn’t sure if I’d made the right decision.

I got to Grinnell that August, and before I had even unpacked, I was making another list:

1. First adviser meeting! 2. Go to bookstore BEFORE Thursday. 3. EXTRACURRICULARS???

This list, too, had its beady eye fixed on the future, again presuming each meeting, each paper, each expressed interest was a trapdoor into which my future could fall with even one misstep. Curiously, the pitch of my worry never really matched the frenzied tone of the earlier list — somehow I had relaxed. At home, when asked how I was liking Grinnell, I told the truth but spoke as if reading from a brochure: “I … love … it?” The sentiment seemed foreign to me; it felt strange to regard academia with anything less than wary apprehension.

Now, two years after commemorating my worry with exclamation-marked bullet points and one year after I sat sweating, surrounded by boxes in the August heat, my to-do list reads:

1. Call mom. 2. English paper. 3. Four-year plan. 4. Birthday cake.

The only time I use multiple exclamation points is when I gleefully message my roommate to tell her there are chickpea samosas in the dining hall.

Of course, Grinnell is no academic utopia where nobody worries and we all skip merrily through exams and papers into grad schools, jobs, and boundless joy. It’s hard work, and I’m not exempt from the anxiety that accompanies rigor. Worry is still a part of my life, sure, but it has a sort of bright energy to it, a buoyancy of possibility that my 18-year-old self mistook for doom. I’m worried about where I should go abroad, because I want to go everywhere. I’m worried about choosing four classes for next semester, because I want to take nine. I’m worried about which synonym for smooth works best in a poem I’m writing. I’m working as hard as ever, but it is worry propelled by a much less sinister force.

Thinking about the future is weird, but now it’s exciting, and I know that whatever happens, it will be fine. If ever I were to reintroduce the exclamation point to my personal-life advice, now would be the time: The future will be fine!!!

Oh, and if you were wondering, Acceptance is a Lifetime original movie starring Joan Cusack. Watching it is on my to-do list.

Things I Need to Worry About… or thought I did.

by Emily Mester ’14, who will soon declare an English major. She is originally fromRiverside, Ill., likes to write poems, and has worn many finesweaters.

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The Grinnell Magazine Winter 2011 1

13 The Grinnell PrizeThe Grinnell College Young Innovator for Social Justice Prize is unique. Join four prizewinners and keynote speaker Morris Dees in Herrick Chapel for highlights of their presentations.

20The Grinnell SoulAlumni, students, and faculty and staff members agree that Grinnell College is like no other. Here — in their own words — are some thoughts about why the College is both different and excellent.

26 A Liberal Educationby Geoffrey Galt HarphamOnly 3 percent of American institutions of higher learning offer the type of education available at Grinnell. The little-known history of American liberal education — and its increasing rarity in spite of its overwhelming success — may surprise you.

Constanza Ocampo-Raeder ’95 takes part in the annual San Pedro festival in Piura, Peru

during her field research. She¹s quoted in “A Propensity for Ph.D.s” beginning on page 34.

30 A Better Way to Teach Scienceby Tom Cech ’70A Nobel laureate in chemistry asks why premier small liberal arts colleges generate a disproportionate number of leading scientists — and reveals his conclusions. Also: Tom Wolfe on how Grinnell launched the career of Robert Noyce ’49.

34A Propensity for Ph.D.sby Dan Weeks ’80Grinnell produces a distinctively high number of Ph.D.s in a range of disciplines. Alumni help explain why.

As with previous special issues on activism and leadership, this one is intended as a conversation starter, not the last word. Please let us know what you think at www.grinnell.edu/magazine, or contribute to Grinnell College’s strategic planning process by sending your comment to [email protected].

Webextras www.grinnell.edu/magextras

Download this issue! The Grinnell Magazine is now available online in .pdf form

DepartmentsStudent Musings . . . . . . . inside frontThings I Need to Worry About Emily Mester ’14 chronicles her recovery from college-application stress by re-reading three years worth of her to-do lists.

Editornotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Conversation Starter How does a magazine “host a conversation?” With your help!

Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Hot Topics: The Grinnell 14, pinning down institutional peers, examining Zionism

Explorations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Self-governance: it works

Campusnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Assessing student learning, taking money for granted, self-governance, sustainability …

Classnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Notable AlumniMeet Your Meat Devora Kimmleman-Block ’93Bookers to the Bands Carter Adams ’04 and John Chavez ’05

In MemoriumTrack Coach Dick “Killer” YoungPresident A. Richard TurnerTrustee Steve JobsTrustee Elizabeth Kruidenier

Alumni Musings . . . . . . . . inside backEngage Me! Alumni suggest how.

President Kington and the Strategic Planning Steering Committee are asking — and intend the answers to guide the College for generations to come. Here are five of the hundreds of “distinctions” currently being discussed.

W h at M a k e s G r i n n e l l D i s t i n c t i v e ?

2 The Grinnell Magazine Winter 2011

The Grinnell MagazineWinter 2011Volume 44 Number 2Email: [email protected]

Office of CommunicationsActing Vice-president for CommunicationsAngela Voos [email protected]

EditorDan Weeks ’[email protected]

Art Director / DesignerJim [email protected]

Senior Contributing WritersRichard Cleaver ’75Cindy Deppe

Classnotes EditorBonnie Primley [email protected]

Editorial AssistantMona Ghadiri ’11

Contributing PhotographerBen Brewer ’11

The Grinnell Magazine (ISSN 1539-0950) is published quarterly by Grinnell College, Office of Communications, 1026 Park St., Grinnell, IA 50112. Periodicals postage paid at Grinnell, IA, and additional mailing offices.

© Copyright Grinnell College, 2011

POSTMASTERSend address changes to:The Grinnell Magazine1026 Park StreetGrinnell, IA 50112FAX: 641-269-3408Email: [email protected]

Mission StatementThe Grinnell Magazine is published quarterly for alumni, students, parents, faculty, and friends of the College by the Office of Communica-tions. The contents of this magazine are selected to stimulate thought and discussion, to demonstrate the range of opinions and activities on the campus and in its broader community, and to provide news about the College and its alumni. Views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect official policy of Grinnell College.

Central Switchboard641-269-4000

World Wide Webwww.grinnell.edu

On the cover:The word cloud on the cover is based on responses of current Grinnell students to a survey asking them to describe the College. The larger the word, the more frequently it appeared in their responses. The cover was designed by Jim Powers, the magazine’s art director and designer.

Printed in the USAPrinted on recycled paperPlease recycle

EDITORNOTES

Conversation StarterDuring October’s volunteer weekend, a group of about 50 class agents asked me a number of great questions about this magazine. When we were done talking, they suggested I share the gist of our conversation with magazine readers — and that I continue to talk with you about the magazine in each issue.

Who are you? I’m Dan Weeks ’80, back in Grinnell after 25-plus years of editing consumer magazines. I arrived in time to produce the Winter 2010 issue, taking over from Jacqueline Hartling Stolze, who ably edited this publication for 13 years.

How do you see the magazine changing? The College is moving from a message-centered focus (“Hear this!”) to an audience-engaging focus (“Let’s talk about this!”). It’s analogous to moving from teaching by lecture to teaching by discussion. So the magazine’s job is to host conversations about the College and all things Grinnellian.

How does a magazine “host conversations?” By choosing stories that aim to spark your response as well as your interest. We hope

“The Grinnell Soul,” Page 20, is one example. By trying to make it easy for you to respond to what you read by adding email addresses

and websites at which you can offer your feedback on stories. Look for them throughout the magazine. Or, just send emails to [email protected] . We’ll make sure they land in the right place.

By making the magazine available online in .pdf form at www.grinnell.edu/magazine so you can read it electronically or share it with others.

By asking for your help. For example, “A Propensity for Ph.Ds.,” Page 34, is largely written by you in response to a request we published in the Spring 2010 issue.

By featuring more commentary from a wider range of Grinnell alumni, students, faculty, and staff than ever. Those contributing to this issue include first-year students and Nobel Prize-winner Tom Cech ’70. All had insight we thought worthy of your reading — and, perhaps, your response.

Let us know what you think — and suggest other ways we can converse about and beyond these pages — by emailing (or snail-mailing) letters to the editor, comments, suggestions, and story ideas to [email protected] .

Grinnell is not only an institution, it’s a community. Far-flung alumni are its expatriate members. I hope each issue of this magazine is a ticket home — not just to the Grinnell you remember, but to the Grinnell you continue to create and nourish and improve through your engagement.

— Sincerely,Dan Weeks ’80, editor

[email protected]/magazine


The Grinnell Magazine welcomes letters from readers concerning the contents of the magazine or issues relating to the College. All letters should include the author’s name and address. Anonymous letters will be discarded. Letters selected for publication may be edited for length, content, and style. Address correspondence to: The Grinnell Magazine, Office of Communications, Grinnell College, Grinnell IA 50112-1690, or send email to [email protected] .

LETTERSVanity compromisedI was delighted with the article [“The Grinnell 14 Go to Washington,” Fall 2011] and proud to have had a part, both in the “movement” and on the pages of the magazine.

I do need to say, however, that my vanity was a bit compromised: The careers of all were listed in their stories. Mine, not at all. I mean, you did mention I got married. A pre-baby boomer such as I was expected to go to college and get married, and I did. But I also went on to become a licensed clinical psychologist with a postdoctoral M.S. in clinical psychopharmacology. Additionally, I serve on the advisory committee of Dr. Phil and am on the governing body (council of representatives) of the American Psychological Association, among other things … a regular busybody, my mother would say. Just thought I’d bring it up so maybe … somewhere it could pop up.

— Sally Singer Horwatt Brodsky ’63

Reston, Va.

Hail, Mona!I want to commend Mona Ghadiri ’11 for the fine job she did on the Grinnell 14. Adding participant perspectives to the narrative by Peter and Terry enriched the story, and they were presented beautifully. Mona was a delight to talk to, and she certainly demonstrated her interviewing, writing and editing skills. I imagine she’ll find a way to put them to good use in the future.

Thanks again for a great story.— Bayard Catron ’63

Member, the Grinnell 14Charlottesville, Va.

Ms. Ghadiri is an editorial assistant and researcher for The Grinnell Magazine. Her fine interviews — and her warmth, insight, and enthusiasm for Grinnell and Grinnellians — underlie many of magazine’s most insightful stories about Grinnell alumni.

Deeply formativeLooking at the cover photo [Fall 2011 issue], I was reminded of my arrival at Grinnell in 1962 from Yugoslavia. Not only was the ability to question and debate with our professors a novel academic experience for me, but coming from a country where any protest was simply unthinkable, the idea of engaging in social activism was nothing short of intoxicating. I never tired of listening to firsthand accounts from several of the Grinnell 14 who became friends. What I did not realize then was how deeply formative the experience would be. Even though I have always worked in the early childhood education field, organizing grass roots for action has been a favorite (and effective) strategy. Just last spring, through disciplined, intentional, locally based actions, we managed to save 200,000 Head Start children and 55,000 jobs from cuts intended

by the U.S. Congress. In 1995, Rachel Bly ’93 [now Grinnell’s director of conference operations and events] was an amazing grassroots organizer during our fight to ensure funding for child care in welfare reform.

Thank you, Grinnell, and the Grinnell 14, for the inspiration to act!

— Yasmina Vinci (Yasmina Stefanovic Manning ’63)

Executive Director, National Head Start Association

Alexandria, Va.

Thank you, Grinnell, and the Grinnell 14, for the inspiration to act!

—Yasmina Vinci (Yasmina Stefanovic Manning ’63)


Downright scary!The cover picture [Fall 2011] was downright scary! I initially thought I was looking at a photo from the ’40s, but then recognized too many of the people and realized they were my colleagues!!! Thank you, Peter [Coyote ’64], for bringing back to life one of the more important events during our tenure as students at Grinnell.

All through my teaching career I have tried to describe to young students what the ’60s were like: How tumultuous things were; how we all felt we actually could have an impact on national and world events. And we DID! Many just could not comprehend that. Those times will never be forgotten. Thank you for reinvigorating my retiring mind.

— Tom Somerville ’64Tequesta, Fla.

Great workI think the latest [Fall 2011] issue was one of the best. It helps that I was a freshman in 1961. I was bewildered and in over my head. I couldn’t imagine skipping out on classes for a cross-country trip; but the 14 were upperclassmen, and they had our full attention and respect; they did change the world.

— Rick Hahn ’65Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Joe Wall speaks outShortly after reading “The Grinnell 14 Go to Washington” I finished Grinnell Professor Paul Kuntz’s book, The Concept of Order. This 1968 book collected the presentations of more than 20 scholars who visited Grinnell during the 1963–64 school year. The last paper in the book, by Joseph Wall, professor of history, is titled “The Historian’s Approach to Reality.” In it, Wall says, “The historian ... must, I feel, speak out against Rand Corporation studies to prove we can survive a nuclear war, must argue against fallout shelters and all other proposals that would blur our vision and would confuse reality with unreality, order with chaos.”

— Michael Levin ’66 Denver, Colo.

Help wanted!I had no idea about Grinnell College’s role in launching the modern student peace movement, as related in “The Grinnell 14 Go to Washington.” This gap in my understanding of Grinnell’s historic contribution is more surprising because I was an incoming student from nearby Newton [Iowa] only seven years after the events described, and have been professionally involved in arms control work for most of my career after going to Washington myself in 1975.

Your coverage enhances the appreciation we should all have for those on whose shoulders we stand. It also provides insight for student activists today about how to make a positive difference. The firsthand retrospectives show that we can come together in common cause in spite of wide variations in individual perspectives and personal circumstances.

A final note: The Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 ended U.S. and Soviet atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, but it was not until 1980 that

I initially thought I was looking at a photo from the ’40s, but then recognized too many of the people.

— Tom Somerville ’64


the last such test occurred (in China). A comprehensive treaty to ban all nuclear weapons testing worldwide, President Kennedy’s original objective, was finally concluded in 1996 and signed by all five of the original nuclear weapons states. But India, Pakistan, and North Korea have each conducted multiple tests (underground) since then. Although the United States worked hard to negotiate the treaty, known as “CTBT,” and has observed a testing moratorium for 19 years, it has not yet ratified the document. Getting the U.S. Senate to approve ratification is the next big thing in moving toward a world free from the danger of a nuclear holocaust. Help wanted!

— Greg Thielmann ’72Senior Fellow,

Arms Control AssociationWashington, D.C.

A history lesson for allThank you Peter (Cohon) Coyote ’64 and Terry Bisson ’64 and the participants involved for the article “The Grinnell 14 Go to Washington” [Fall 2011]. A history lesson for all. The timing of the article is extraordinary considering the initial emergence of the Occupy Wall Street activities.

—Roxanne Wu-RebeinParent of a Grinnell student

Prairie Village, Kan.

Peers?Using the U.S. News & World Report ratings, I am curious how the peers [mentioned in “Choosing Grinnell’s Future,” Fall 2011] of Grinnell (tied for No. 19) turned out to be Williams (rated No. 1), Swarthmore (rated No. 3), and Carleton (rated No. 6). I would like to know how we compare to Hamilton (rated No. 17), Harvey Mudd (rated No. 18), and Smith, with whom we share the No. 19 spot.

— Charlie Martin ’70Wilmette, Ill.

Peers!For more than a decade, Grinnell administrators cited “peer institutions” when benchmarking performance or justifying decisions. But the peer group was an ever-moving target, changing from one day to the next. During my years of volunteer service, it became something of a hobby to press College leadership to identify our malleable market basket of institutional peers. I never got a good answer — until now. I commend President [Raynard S.] Kington for clearly identifying our “peer competitors.” Carleton, Swarthmore and Williams are solid picks, good for long-term comparison.

I just have one caution. The performance of our institutional competitors has, for far too long, held disproportionate influence on Grinnell’s leadership team. I hope President Kington de-emphasizes this tired, old “follow-the-crowd” mindset, and forges this College into an educational leader that our peers — for a change — race to follow!

— Craig Hooper ’93Mobile, Ala.

My unsettling epiphanyRaynard Kington’s insights into Grinnell’s economic challenges [“Choosing Grinnell’s Future,” Fall 2011] led me to the insight that he is a manager rather than an educator. Searching online for a class that he has taught has not altered this impression. Although I admire his stature in academia, I am unsettled by my epiphany. Let us hope that either Google or I am wrong.

— Bruce Larson ’73Fairbanks, Alaska

It became something of a hobby to press College leadership to identify our malleable market basket of institutional peers. I never got a good answer — until now.

— Craig Hooper ’93


When I was 21 …Your story [“Turnaround (Liberal) Artists,” Fall 2011] brought to mind another experience: the struggle to find your niche in the working world upon graduation. A liberal arts education (1) does not fit you for any particular profession, but (2) gives you the ability to succeed in many. When I was 21 and trying to figure out how I would finance the rest of my life, I understood (1) and felt I’d wasted thousands of dollars. It was years before I experienced (2) and finally understood the value my money had purchased. This could be instructive for new grads and their parents.

— Susan J. Grodsky ’74Deerfield Beach, Fla.

Hard lineIn regard to “Grinnellians Examine Zionism … ” [Fall 2011]: The United States and Israel are virtually the only countries committed to defending freedom against radical Islamists. These extremists seek to destroy Israel and the United States and to replace of our civilizations with theirs. Some surveys suggest young American Jews appear less committed to defending Israel. These people have been misinformed about the danger to themselves and to the American way of life from radical Islam, often by liberal Jewish organizations, such as J Street, that imply Israel does not fully practice traditional Jewish values of “healing the world” and “compassion.” If young American Jews knew the history of the Holocaust and of Arab dictatorships’ attempts to destroy Israel, they would realize Israel must hew a hard-line defense.

— Hal Goldberg ’60 Laguna Woods, Calif.

Hard factsI read the full text of the essay [by Erica Seltzer-Schultz ’12 and Michael Goldfien ’12, referenced in “Grinnellians Examine Zionism … ,” Fall 2011]. It seems they believe the current problem is the fault of the Israelis. But there can never be peace in the Mideast if Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel. You cannot negotiate with people who deny your right to exist. Goldfien and Seltzer-Schultz don’t know their history. Students today have been ill-served by their teachers, who are more interested in teaching political correctness than sticking with the hard, cold facts.

— Alan Ravitz parent of Grinnell

daughter and son-in-law Tucson, Ariz.

Premature retirementAccording “Grinnellians Examine Zionism …” [Fall 2011], Frederick Baumann’s career as a history professor ended in 1954. Yet, I took a history class from him in 1956, and he is listed in the 1958, 1959, and 1960 editions of Cyclone. Hence, Baumann retired in 1960 or later.

— David L. White ’60Fort Worth, Texas

Frederick Baumann officially retired in 1954 but continued to teach one course each year until 1966.

Students today have been ill-served by their teachers, who are more interested in teaching political correctness than sticking with the hard, cold facts.

— Alan Ravitz


Look further[I was] disappointed at the cursory comment in your obituary of S. Eugene Thompson ’58 [Summer 2011] that he “worked in the publications office until 1970.” If you had looked further you would have discovered that he was, in fact, the director of publications, a position he later held with distinction at Whitman and Reed colleges. More important for Grinnell readers, he was the founding editor of The Grinnell Magazine. Surely that’s worthy of note.

— Gerald Sorensen ’58Madison, Wis.

.pdf me!Would you kindly remove my name from The Grinnell Magazine mail subscription? I prefer to read the magazine online, and I would like to help the environment by reducing the paper mail I receive.

— Amy Lubelchek Kudlov ’95Chicago

Teach at Grinnell!Perhaps I should keep my mouth shut, because I’d like to repeat the experience, and it probably does not help if too many alumni know. But, out with it: Grinnell College invites alumni back to teach a couple of three-week courses each year under the auspices of the Donald L. Wilson Program in Enterprise and Leadership.

Teaching a Wilson course offers a rare combination of an extended visit to our alma mater and interaction with her students. In fall 2011, I taught The International Commercial Lawyer in the Age of Global Finance, a course about laws and practices that control the movement of goods and services internationally. We talked, among other things, about the World Trade Organization, European Union, North American Free Trade Agreement, the U.N. Convention on the International Sale of Goods, letters of credit, and international civil litigation.

Private international law practice has grown constantly since I spent two years in Peru

45 years ago, and I hoped to inspire Grinnell students to practice law overseas. When I went to law school, virtually no one thought of such a practice.

The class provided open, lively, stimulating discussion. The students all read 400 pages in three weeks with nary a complaint, and came to class with penetrating questions. The campus looked great and was an intense concentration of youthful hyperactivity. Students seem focused on learning but are also living large and quaffing enormous draughts of the formative juices that will define their lives.

Grinnell maintains its usual outpouring of events, far too many to attend even a fair sampling. It is like visiting New York or Chicago, all concentrated in a four-square- block area. In my time on campus, baritone Simon Estes gave a concert and a convocation where he reminisced about his Iowa roots and subsequent career. Other convocations featured Rabbi

Melissa Weintraub, one of the recipients of this year’s Grinnell Social Justice Prize Award, and Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, to name just a few. Faulconer Gallery had two separate exhibits going.

Wilson Program Director Mark Montgomery, professor of economics; Doug Caulkins, past director and professor emeritus of anthropology; and Sondi Burnell, administrative assistant, were gracious to a fault. I can never thank them sufficiently for creating a splendid experience to revisit a special place in a special way. Long live the Wilson Program, and bring many alumni to Grinnell’s campus to help in the education of many students!

— Dale Furnish ’62Tempe, Ariz.

To find out more about Wilson Program teaching opportunities, contact Sondi Burnell, 641-269-4343 or [email protected]

It is like visiting New York or Chicago, all concentrated in a four-square-block area. —Dale Furnish ’62

mailto:[email protected]


Explorations

College students generally are not fans of rules and regulations. Despite this, college administrators are faced with establishing more policies, restrictions, and codes of conduct. All this in a time of increasing concerns with liability, litigation, and — in some cases — intrusive forms of campus policing and enforcement.

Grinnell College has taken a very different and successful approach, building community with principles of self-governance. This approach means that students agree to self-regulate their actions in order to maintain a healthy and safe community. With self-governance, students are responsible and accountable for their choices, words, and actions as individual members of the campus community.

Rather than focusing on what students can and can’t do, Grinnell emphasizes aspirational behaviors, reminding individuals to act with integrity, to consider how their actions impact others, to value their own personal safety and that of others, to respect personal and College property, and to act as role models of good citizenship. With these community standards in mind, students work to prevent their actions from infringing upon others’ rights and to resolve interpersonal issues through shared understandings.

Here are some common examples of how self-governance works on campus:

If there is a noise complaint in a residence hall (such as loud music or voices), students approach one another and attempt to resolve the matter themselves, prior to calling a residence adviser, hall director, or campus security.

Student advisers on each residence hall floor are community builders, not rule enforcers “doing rounds,” a common practice at many colleges. Students are expected to be actively looking out for one anothers’ best interests and well-being.

New Student Orientation is planned and facilitated by Grinnell students. Many campuses invite outside

experts and consultants to discuss topics such as honesty, sexual responsibility, drugs and alcohol, and diversity. However, at Grinnell these sensitive issues are explained personally and credibly by students.

Social events are completely planned, coordinated, and overseen by students.

Student clubs and organizations at Grinnell do not require a staff or faculty adviser to “sign off” on plans, expenditures, or elections, as is the case at most higher education institutions.

While self-governance may seem loose and unstructured, it’s actually just the opposite. Students learn how hard it is to operate openly, responsibly, and accountably. Furthermore, by self-governing, they remove most of the conflict resolution burden from the professional staff, allowing them to focus on educational purposes. At Grinnell, very few situations ultimately need to be elevated to a formal proceeding that involves a hearing.

Perhaps the most important benefit of self-governance is how it impacts students both now and in life after campus. They learn an invaluable lesson: that in real life, the response to many interpersonal situations is “it depends,” in a world that is mostly gray, not black and white. Without a handbook to follow, graduates leave campus with an instinctual understanding of how to act with integrity, honesty, and in a socially just manner as a world citizen. They also take with them the interpersonal skills they will need as they enter the “real world,” full of challenging coworkers, employers, neighbors and others.

Self-governance isn’t for every school, nor will every student find it to be the right fit. But for those who can commit to maintaining a shared set of community values, it can be a great tool for creating a positive campus experience and teaching critical life skills. n

Dougharty is Grinnell’s vice-president for student affairs. This piece originally appeared on Huffpost College, Oct. 10, 2011.

Self-GovernanceGrinnell Empowers Students to Govern Themselves

by Houston Dougharty

“Explorations,” a regular feature, brings you the views, opinions, and insights of Grinnell College community members.

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Never Ending QuestionsAcademic excellence at Grinnell is increasingly characterized by faculty-student research. In fact, joint professor-student authorship of academic work is now common in the natural sciences. But in the humanities? Not so much.

That is, until Astrid Henry, right, associate professor of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies (GWSS), teamed up with Erica Hougland ’10, the first Grinnellian to graduate — with honors — with a GWSS major.

Their essay, “Never Ending Questions: The Politics of Self-Critique,” documents the evolution of academic feminism and the influence of activism and of younger generations on the discipline.

It will appear in the forthcoming book And Finally We Meet: Intersections

and Intersectionality Among Feminist Activists, Academics and Students, edited by Alice Ginsberg and being published by the Institute for Teaching and Research on Women at Towson University.

The book is made up of dialogues between feminists — one usually an academic and the other either a student or an activist. Henry, who has focused much of her scholarly work on dialogue between generations of feminists, chose Hougland as her essay-writing partner, as the two had already worked together on a Mentored Advanced Project. Hougland is an activist for Growing Power! in Chicago, an organization dedicated to providing “high-quality, safe, healthy, affordable food for all residents in the community” through urban agriculture.

Academic feminism is a rapidly evolving field, and Henry and Hougland say they are happy to be a part of the multigenerational conversation that is moving it forward.

— Richard Cleaver ’75

CAMPUS NOTES

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It’s Easier Being GreenFor more than 10 years, the Grinnell College community recycled newspapers, beverage bottles and cans, white and colored paper, and magazines — more than two tons a week, on average. But sorting each recycling type into its own container was a time-consuming chore.

Not anymore. Starting in October 2011, the College,

working with the city of Grinnell, implemented single-stream recycling.

“Students have been asking for single-stream recycling for several years,” says Chris Bair ’96,environmental and safety coordinator and sustainability committee co-chair. “But it just wasn’t feasible to set up our own sorting system on campus or to ship mixed recyclables to the nearest sorting center in Des Moines.” When the city of Grinnell decided to change to single-stream recycling as well, the College was delighted to participate.

“This may sound pathetically nerdy,” says Liz Queathem, assistant professor of biology and co-chair of the sustainability committee. “But I was so thrilled when new receptacles turned up that said ‘Recyclables Only,’ I immediately whipped out my phone and took a picture. Recycling is now so much simpler.”

— Mona Ghadiri ’11

Welcome!After a national search, Grinnell College named Jim Reische as Grinnell’s first vice-president for communications.

Reische worked in the Office of University Development at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor for the past four years as editor and senior writer and, most recently, as campaign strategist and assistant campaign director. Before that, he worked with the University of Michigan Press, one of the nation’s leading academic presses.

“Jim has demonstrated success in building comprehensive communications plans and aligning campus constituencies to build awareness and gain both internal and external support for academic and philanthropic goals,” says Dr. Raynard S. Kington, Grinnell College president. “He values an inclusive leadership style and is dedicated to capturing our mission, history, commitment to diversity, and our innovative, inquiry-based learning model, while building a strategic vision for our communications function.”

“From my first visit to campus I could tell that Grinnell was a special place,” Reische says, “Every interaction I’ve had at the College has confirmed that impression. I look forward to partnering with students, faculty, staff, and alumni to build awareness and appreciation of Grinnell’s outstanding academics, vital intellectual community, and fierce commitment to social good.”

Reische holds a B.A. in social sciences, an M.A. in Russian history from the University of Michigan, and an M.A. in area studies from Harvard.

Climate Change Is Here and NowIn November, David Campbell, Henry R. Luce Professor in Nations and the Global Environment and professor of biology, joined 30 other Iowa scientists in issuing a statement reaffirming the reality of climate change and urging candidates to acknowledge the science of climate change and present “appropriate policy responses.” The scientists point out that Iowa is already experiencing climate change.

“Over the last 40 years, intense rainfall has occurred about five times more often than in our previous history,” their statement says. “As a result, our communities have faced enormous expense to recover from repeated ‘500-year’ floods. Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Iowa City, and Ames all have suffered multimillion-dollar losses from floods since 1993. In 2008 alone, 85 of Iowa’s 99 counties were declared federal disaster areas.”

The statement continues: “All major scientific societies and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences have affirmed that the recent rise in greenhouse gases in the global atmosphere has contributed to changes in our climate. We urge all candidates for public office at national, state, and local levels to acknowledge the overwhelming balance of evidence for the underpinning causes of climate change, to develop appropriate

policy responses, and to develop local and statewide strategies to adapt to near-term changes in climate.”

The College is committed to greenhouse-gas reduction and environmental sustainability.

In spring 2011, Grinnell College President Raynard S. Kington charged a committee of faculty, staff, and students to create the College’s first comprehensive sustainability plan. Planning responsibilities were divided into six work groups: behavior, education, transportation, facilities, business processes, and food. The planning process is now underway.

In November, Dr. Kington signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), pledging the College to build all new buildings to LEED-Silver standards and to require all applicable appliances purchased by the College to be Energy-Star rated.

The ACUPCC is an effort to address global warming by garnering institutional commitments to eliminate net greenhouse-gas emissions and accelerate the research and educational efforts of higher education to equip society to restabilize Earth’s climate.


How do we track how students learn at Grinnell? And how can we further improve our teaching?

Earlier this year, the College formed an ad hoc Assessment Task Force to help refine teaching and learning at Grinnell.

“Assessment is, of course, partly about accountability,” says President Raynard S. Kington. “But we do not do assessment for other people, whether it is public commissions, or accreditation bodies, or even just to measure ourselves against others or some imaginary standard. We do assessment for ourselves to get the data we need to keep improving our teaching.

“Once upon a time we claimed there was no way to assess the value of medical treatment by saying, ‘You cannot quantify the value of a life.’ That’s true, you cannot. Nor can you precisely

Assessing Student Learningquantify the value of a liberal arts education. But what we found in medicine was that if we looked very hard at what we did and how we did it, we learned what was working and what was not, and then we used that information to learn how to do what we do better. That is what the Assessment Task Force is helping us do.”

The 11-member task force is chaired by Wayne Moyer, Rosenfield Professor of Political Science, and is composed of faculty, administrators, and a student. It has talked to departments about current assessment practices, examined the College’s “Alumni Outlook Survey,” and reviewed “The Wabash Study,” an independent study of liberal arts college teaching practices designed to help institutions create a process for using evidence to make

improvements in student learning. The task force found

departments use various practices to assess curriculum: annual retreats to discuss curriculum and major requirements, “curricular maps” to relate individual courses to specific principles of a discipline or to overarching learning goals, exit interviews with graduating seniors, and portfolios of student work. Many departments combine one or more of these methods.

Moyer says the next step involves promoting common practices across the curriculum. Task force recommendations range from a faculty-led Standing Committee on Student Learning to an annual summer workshop to a professional assessment coordinator. The task force also hosted a workshop to discuss these recommendations and to share best practices. This academic year, faculty, some administrative bodies and the Strategic Planning Teaching and Learning Working Group are discussing the recommendations.

How It’s DoneThe College’s Writing Portfolio Project predates the task force but is an excellent example of the kinds of pedagogical evolution the task force is intended to facilitate.

The project was designed to assess how well the College teaches writing skills across the curriculum and to track how students’ skills improve. Students elect to participate in the project and assemble their portfolios. Each summer, a group of faculty members meet to read and discuss the portfolios.

During its five-year life, the project has changed how professors assign and respond to student writing, and has spawned the successful writing fellows program, which placed peer writing tutors in courses in six disciplines.

— Richard Cleaver ’75Have you experienced a particularly effective practice or learning assessment? If so, the Assessment Task Force wants to hear from you. Email Wayne Moyer, task force chair, at [email protected].

Act III for Jayn Bailey Chaney ’05 Alumni volunteer Jayn Bailey Chaney ’05 will return to campus for a third act in January — this time as director of alumni relations. Chaney served as assistant director of alumni relations and assistant director of the Pioneer Fund at Grinnell from 2005–10 before accepting a position at Ohio Wesleyan University, where she is director of annual giving.

A theatre major at Grinnell, Chaney has since been a class volunteer, serving as a class fund co-director. “I am thrilled to be returning to campus where the possibilities are endless for developing creative alumni programming. Grinnellians’ vast interests and talents offer so much potential for helping to launch the College’s new strategic plan and to be further engaged with the active life of the College. Alumni are 20,000 strong, and I am honored to be appointed to lead and create connections among us,” Chaney says.

Alumni Council President Carter Newton ’77 has worked with Chaney in several capacities as she has worked with staff, volunteers

and alumni. “I am impressed with how eager she is to build an alumni relations office for which there is no equal,” Newton says, referring to Chaney’s plans to fill current openings on the alumni relations staff.

Chaney replaces Meg Jones Bair, who has been serving as interim director of alumni relations and who will continue as director of donor relations.

— Cindy Deppe


Distinction Granted!Some of Grinnell’s most notable attributes have been funded by foundations and government agencies.

Innovative teaching and mentoring in the sciences, broad language-study options, and excellent facilities are among Grinnell’s hallmarks. All were started with the help of grant funding, thanks to an active Corporate, Foundation, and Government Relations Office. The College partners with grant-giving organizations to advance College programs and infrastructure in ways that have lasting benefit.

“The College never chases foundation money for its own sake, no matter how attractive an invitation may be,” says Karen Wiese ’73, the office’s director. “We have our own priorities, and we use external funds to accomplish them. When we develop a proposal, we always consider how the work will be sustained at the college after the grant runs out.”

Here are some notable results:

Teaching and mentoringOften, foundations identify a problem that also concerns Grinnell — in the case of the Presidential Award-winning Grinnell Science Project (GSP), low numbers of women and domestic students of color persisting in the study of science — and Grinnell helps provide a solution.

In this case, the solution was a pilot mentoring program funded with help from GTE Foundation and Lilly Endowment. The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded the College grants throughout the 1990s for related curriculum developments. The NSF and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) continue to support the GSP and the assessment of its results. HHMI grants have also funded assessment of student research experiences, largely through the work of David Lopatto, professor of psychology and Rosenthal Professor of Natural Science and Mathematics, whose research has expanded well beyond Grinnell.

LanguagesGrinnell students of Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic can thank grants. Arabic is typical: instruction under the Alternative Language Study Option proved demand; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation paid some of the salary of Mervat Youssef, an assistant professor who teaches Arabic, for three years, and funded professional and curriculum development. The Mellon portion of Youssef’s salary gradually declined while the College’s contribution rose until it funded the full cost. Other organizations included: the Gardner and Florence Call Cowles Foundation and the Freeman Foundation.

This type of funding arrangement is good for both the College and the foundations. The College gets seed money to start a program it couldn’t budget for otherwise, and the foundations see their initial work continued by the College with College funds, freeing the foundations to move on to fund other projects.

FacilitiesMany campus buildings were grant-supported. The Kresge Foundation helped fund the original science building in 1952; Burling Library, the original Fine Arts Center, and the renovation of Carnegie in 1958; the expansion of the Science Center in 1964 and of Burling in 1981; the renovation of Mears Cottage in 1986 and ARH in 1990; and the first phase of Noyce in 1997.

Large projects may involve several sources. Arthur Vining Davis Foundations joined the National Endowment for the Humanities to endow library acquisitions in 1981. The foundation also contributed to Mears and ARH renovations and to both phases of Noyce.

In his inaugural address, President Kington said, “Colleges and universities with adequate resources must seek to innovate in response to a changing world.” Grants from foundations and public agencies are an important way Grinnell leverages its resources to meet this challenge.


A Grinnell TreasureOn Sept. 15, President Raynard Kington surprised Kandy Wilson, who works with food management systems in dining services, with a bouquet of 40 red roses. For many, her name is familiar, and it should be. Wilson received her roses in honor of 40 years of service to the College.

Wilson has been with dining services since 1971. She spent 28 of those years working in the Forum Grill. At first it was four nights a week, supervising student staff from 5 p.m. until closing. Now she works with food management systems on the second floor of the Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center, keeping track of recipes and food planning.

Barb Shell, technical assistant in dining services and Wilson’s co-worker, says, “Kandy values her close relationships with students more than anything else. I think one of her proudest moments was being selected as an honorary class member [in 1981].” Wilson has been a host mother to Afghan refugee students, and on more than one occasion drove students home for the summer to places as far away as Colorado and even California. “She’s a Grinnell treasure,” says Veronika Platzer ’87, who went to Colorado with Wilson. The feeling is mutual.

“I have so many special memories working with students,” Wilson says. “They are the best part about working here.”

Dining services recognized her accomplishment at a reception held in the Marketplace. Dick Williams, director of dining services, spoke; the G-Tones, Grinnell’s male a cappella group, performed in her honor; and attendees ate cupcakes decorated with adjectives (such as “helpful,” “loyal,” and “trustworthy”) that describe Wilson. The College also planted a rosebush in the JRC courtyard in her honor.

Wilson has no immediate plans to retire. “To make it to 50 years would be great,” she says.

— Mona Ghadiri ’11

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The Grinnell College Young Innovator for Social Justice Prize, or Grinnell Prize, was launched by President Raynard S. Kington in 2010 to support positive social change, to celebrate the college’s long history of involvement with such work, and to inspire and instruct the Grinnell community — especially students — through direct access to the world’s most innovative and effective young change agents.

The first Grinnell Prize Symposium in October accomplished all three objectives, but was particularly strong on the third.

“I left feeling really inspired.” said Jennifer Brown ’12. “Grinnellians believe we have an obligation to society. These people are a testament to that. They are role models.”

Many other Grinnellians echoed her comments throughout the week.

In addition to an awards ceremony in Herrick Chapel, the winners met often with students in classes, fora, and informal discussions. They challenged, encouraged, and

advised students who wanted to know everything from how to start a nongovernmental organization to how the winners found the creativity and strength to innovate and persevere while dealing with seemingly intractable problems like human trafficking, deadlocked peace initiatives, and crushing poverty.

The 2011 winners each addressed the college in individual presentations in Herrick Chapel, as did keynote speaker Morris Dees. Dees has worked to change the civil rights landscape in this country for more than 50 years. Each prize winner is at the forefront of inventing and applying new solutions to some of the most urgent issues of our times. All brought extraordinarily compelling insight and personal experience to the College.

Here are some highlights of their presentations. You’re also welcome to watch the full video record of their speeches, question-and-answer sessions, and other aspects of their visit at www.grinnell.edu/magazine.

TheGrinnell Prize

The first Grinnell Prize Symposium is a landmark event for the College—and

delivers a big dose of practical inspiration.

Photos by Ben Brewer ’11


http://www.grinnell.edu/magazine


With Justice for AllMorris Dees co-founded the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1971 following a successful business and law career. He won a series of groundbreaking civil rights cases that helped integrate government and public institutions, and crippled some of America’s most notorious hate groups. A storyteller in the Southern tradition, Dees delivered his speech extemporaneously to an enthralled audience. Here is an excerpt:

Rosa Parks did not live far from my grandmother’s house. Refused to give up her seat on the bus and started America’s Civil Rights Movement. I like to think it is the last battle in the American Revolution. It gave so many people rights they did not have. But it took another man to lead that social action movement, the Reverend Dr. Martin

Luther King. A man who laid claim to a destiny that his people had been denied so long.

November two years ago the voters of this nation elected America’s first African-American President. Something that Rosa Parks and Dr. King and others would be so proud of. But there has been an increase in hate groups since Obama took the presidency — of about double the number. There are some 1,000 hate groups today in this country. There has also been an explosion of these so-called patriot groups, the kind Timothy McVeigh was a part of when he bombed the Oklahoma Federal Building. We have seen a tripling of them since Obama took Presidency.

There is a lot of ill feeling, there is a lot of trouble, and there is a lot of concern and anxiety going on in our country today. America is changing. In 2010, over 50 percent of the babies born were people of color. So by the year 2040, this nation will not look like the people in this room and myself, it will be a different face of America. Well there are going to be some real changes in this country and there is going to be some resistance to those changes. I think regardless of how it comes out, we are going to be more successful as a nation.

America is great because of our diversity, not in spite of it. When my people came to the United States from Ireland in 1840s and 50s — over 2 million, a much greater percentage than Latinos in our country today — they were roundly condemned. They were demeaned as troublemakers, as drunkards.

Then when the Jews came here from Eastern Europe in 1905-1920, escaping torture, they were condemned too. Oh my goodness, there were signs that said, “No Jews or dogs allowed in this hotel.”

Well, we solved those problems. Had we not had those good people here, we probably

would not have had Jonas Salk here, as that is where his people came from; a man who invented the polio vaccine that saved millions and millions of Americans from torture and death. It is going to be up to you to realize that we need these people from all over in this country today, especially today.

I remember one story out of Billings, Montana, you may have heard. There is a town about like this with 4 percent minorities; well Billings had hardly any minorities, hardly any Jews. Small town. There, a Jewish family purchased their little son a menorah, the candle they used in Hanukkah. This little boy was so proud to get his candleholder that he put it in a window where you could see it from the street, on a table, and he lit a candle each night of Hanukkah. There was a man who saw it and did not appreciate or like what he saw there — I guess it was a man, they never caught him — and he threw a brick through the window.

Well, there was another man in that town that didn’t like what he had seen either, that desecration and discrimination. He was a businessman, he was not Jewish. He had a shop. He sold things in town. He took the letters


of the marquee off the place where he sold his products and put there, “Not In Our Town.” They had cardboard menorahs made at a print shop and they placed those with the help of the schools and the police department and others in the town, they placed them in the windows of most houses facing the street in Billings in support of that little victim of that hate crime.

One night the mother and father took this little boy around after dinner so he could see. As he drove down the street, he looked and he could see the back light from the houses backlighting and showing these menorahs. He kept seeing more and more and he turned to his mom and said, “Mom, I didn’t know so many Jews lived in Billings.” She said, “No son, they are our friends.”

And therein I think lies the answer. When we build bridges across the divides that separate us, it will be because we become friends. We learn to care about and appreciate and love those people who are different, to reach across those divides that separate us and come up with a solution to help us all, so we will have truly a nation with liberty and justice for all. Dr. Martin Luther King walked among us at a time when there was no liberty and justice for all. Most of you can’t even imagine, unless you’re my age, what it was like when blacks were treated less than second class. Dr. King then was concerned that America as a nation, as a democracy, would continue.

I feel confident that you people here — with the reputation of this school for social action — and people who come out of here, and others like you all across this country, will not be satisfied until justice truly rolls down like waters. Remember, remember, that equal rights begin close to home. That’s where people seek equal justice. In our schools, in our communities, our workplaces. And unless people find equal rights and equal treatment in these places, we’ll look as a nation in vain for progress in a larger world. But I have confidence that you will live up to the promises in our Constitution. The promises that were made whole by Dr. Martin Luther King and others in America’s Civil Rights Movement. That you truly will not be satisfied until you do your part.

I think that one day — when myself and most of you out here who are gray-haired like me are gone — one of you is going to write a story about your generation. I have to tell you, I’ve got confidence in you and in this country. And that book is going to be a book about your generation, which I think is going to be one of America’s greatest generations.

“I like to think it is the last battle in the American Revolution.”

— Morris Dees, about the Civil Rights movement.


The Limits of RageRabbi Melissa Weintraub co-founded Encounter, a group that engages Jewish Diaspora leaders in face-to-face discussion with Palestinians in Palestine. Weintraub spoke at Grinnell on “Authentic Peace Building: A Justice that is Not Just Us.”

Weintraub asks her audience to “Imagine this: Orthodox and Reform rabbis, lobbyists from the arch nemesis Israel lobbies AIPAC and J Street, national religious settlers and anti-occupation activists — are all sitting down in front of the separation barrier with a Palestinian family directly impacted by it and grappling together with what it means, with real mutual listening and respect.”

Those kinds of conversations are the result of Weintraub’s personal journey from “a rage-driven to a compassion-centered activism,” and she spoke about “the limitations of righteous rage, particularly in polarized political contexts in which every side is angry.”

Initially, Weintraub says, “I got angrier and angrier,” about oppression and injustice, first as a high school student in Illinois and then as a college student at Harvard and “banded together with like-minded people to target perceived oppressors. … We channeled our common indignation into confrontational and adversarial strategies.”

That changed after a visit to Palestine as Weintraub, then a self-described Zionist, made Palestinian friends and saw and heard things about Israel that “no one had told me as a child.” She tried to share these things — and her outrage about them — with others in Israel.

“I found my outrage was not motivating,” she says. “People dismissed me as marginal and naive.” She began researching the psychology of denial, and began to wonder if the sharing of information about injustice was in itself enough to cause reasonable people to act, and if rage was the right tool for conveying that information. In both cases, she concluded, it wasn’t.

“You can’t open a flower with a hammer,” Weintraub says, quoting her colleague, Rabbi Benjamin Barnett. “A flower opens on its own,” she adds. “It just needs the right conditions.”

Those conditions, she saw, were not present in situations where people were bifurcated into “evil aggressors and noble victims,” and where “everybody was surrounding themselves with people who thought and talked exactly like them.”

What was needed, she realized, was “curiosity across lines of dramatic difference.”

“If I was going to live up to values like human dignity that I always claimed were the north star of my politics,” she realized, “I needed to affirm the dignity, not only of the oppressed but also of those with whom I fundamentally disagreed.”

Her reasons for doing so were practical as well as philosophical: “I believed that most peace activists, by withdrawing in upon themselves, had become completely ineffectual and irrelevant.”

As a result, Encounter was formed to allow people on both sides of the Palestine-Israel conflict to “expand their field of vision by listening resiliently to those they had formerly shut out;” to “train people in communications skills to strengthen their capacities to extend curiosity and openness and honesty through stark disagreement;” to “create the most welcoming, inclusive space possible, down to every last detail” in which to hold these conversations; and to hold the conversations at the point of contention: the West Bank itself, so the participants could feel “the

“You can’t open a flower with a hammer.”

— Melissa Weintraub quoting her colleague, Rabbi Benjamin Barnett.


actual direct realities and experience” of the lives of those in the conflict.

The result has been success beyond expectation. “It turns out when you sincerely remove shame and coercion and attack and dismissal from the equation,” she says “the human curiosity to encounter the other is quite natural and powerful.” One thousand participants and 60 trips later, members of rival points of view “have re-directed their funding and policy priorities and are impacting thousands through their advocacy efforts, their sermons, their published articles and their spin-off entrepreneurial initiatives.”

In the process, she realized, “To transform the attitudes and actions of my audience, I had to undergo a transformation as well. To break through my own … denial about the integrity and concerns of those who came at this conflict from rival points of view, I had to realize also that my story did not encompass the entire story of the conflict.”

Weintraub described the invention of a new technology of activism — in this case, a new paradigm for dealing with the entrenched and seemingly increasingly pervasive problem of deadly and deadlocked partisanism. And like Annan’s approach to eradicating slavery, it involves engaging all sides of the problem in previously unimagined ways.

The Power of Personal Mission

James Kofi Annan survived seven years of child slavery in Ghana that included torture, starvation, near-drowning, daily beatings, and 17-hour workdays in the fishing industry on Lake Volta. He escaped to found Challenging Heights, an organization dedicated to eradicating the slavery he endured.

Annan escaped at age 13 not knowing how to write or “even recite A, B, C,” went without food to tutor himself (at first using kindergarteners’ schoolbooks) earn a master’s degree, and become a manager at Barclays Bank. Then he left banking to start Challenging Heights, an organization dedicated to eradicating slavery — in Ghana and worldwide.

His passionate, clear-eyed recitation of his life story in Herrick chapel left some listeners in tears, as did one of his definitions of success: “that I am still alive today to talk to you in this room” after surviving not only slavery, but more than 30 death threats since. Those threats were the result of his work to rescue, educate, medically and psychologically rehabilitate, and reintegrate Ghanaian child slaves in a caring community where a safe, just, healthy future was possible for them.

The 12th son of illiterate, desperately poor parents did quite a bit of educating on Grinnell’s campus. “The traditionalized slavery that we have all learned about in our history books has gone,” Annan says, “replaced by a new disjointed brand of black- market trafficking. Today, the term slavery is defined as forced labor with little or no pay with threat of violence. ... there are a greater number of people suffering from slavery than ever before.” Globally, slavery is a $30 billion industry that enslaves 27 million people — 250,000 in the United States alone.

Challenging Heights not only rescues and rehabilitates child slaves, it attacks the problem of slavery from every conceivable angle — creating jobs for parents of children at risk of slavery so they can turn down traffickers offers of $30-$40 for children the parents will likely never see again; lobbying for and monitoring the enforcement of anti-slavery laws; educating fishermen about how to profitably fish without slave labor; working to create sustainable income streams for Challenging Heights so that it isn’t dependent upon donations.

It all came, says Annan, from an unlikely place: within himself. “Who am I,” he asks quietly “to be able to come and stand before you, to speak, a poor man’s son?” His answer: a man who found his calling: “My vitality,


my energy, the reason for my existence—that is what has brought me where I am today, talking to you.”

“What is your commitment?” he asks his audience, looking at them intently, letting his words hang in the rafters for a time before continuing. It is, he says, “important for us to identify our own mission — our calling … once we have identified our calling, we will find that we are not going to replicate or do the same things that other people are doing. But we will be doing the things that we are called to do. And it is only when we are called to do those things that we are doing, and it is only when we are doing the things we are called to do, that we will find fulfillment.”

Jumping in the Deep End

Eric W. Glustrom and Boris Bulayev lead Educate!, an organization that empowers Ugandan youth to create and lead solutions to poverty, disease, violence, environmental degradation, and unemployment. Their story about jumping into a huge project with more motivation than expertise was particularly reassuring to Grinnell students.

Educate! provides social entrepreneurship training, long-term mentorship, and access to capital to help youth become social entrepreneurs and problem-solvers. Their model is exponential empowerment — investing long-term in youth so they can positively impact many others. The government of Uganda recently asked Educate! to incorporate its social entrepreneurship course into the national education system. It will reach 45,000 youth annually and be the first national social entrepreneurship curriculum in the world. Educate!’s work to empower Uganda’s youth aims to help the country develop a generation capable of determining their own future and defining progress for their time.

“Today I want to talk about a few lessons that I think I have learned in my short life that to me seem relevant no matter what you choose to do,” says Bulayev, age 26, who arrived in the United States from Latvia at age 7 and ended up, as did Glustrom, age 27, as a student at Amherst College in Massachusetts. He was determined to be a star basketball player, and was — until an injury sidelined him twice and left him feeling that he’d lost not only a dream, but also a personal identity.

Unknowingly, his life up to that point provided him with three essentials for entrepreneurial success: experience with high motivation and extreme focus, the ability to survive a significant loss, and the experience of starting from scratch. His advice is to “find opportunity in failure,” and “take risks to pursue your passion.”

In fact, he says, just pursuing a passion and taking risks can take you a long way. “We really had no idea what we were doing” during the early stages of Educate! “We really started out without a clue,” he says. But the desire to learn, “really coming in blank and not knowing anything but just asking a lot of questions and slowly piecing something pretty cool together,” eventually trumped their lack of experience and created a model of social entrepreneurship that has gone on to win several awards.

That led to Bulayev’s third point: “If you try really hard to be good at something, eventually you will be.”

“What is your commitment?”— James Kofi Annan


“I want to encourage all you guys to find your purpose … and take advantage of your opportunity,” he says, echoing Annan. “I realized I had been given so much opportunity that my path had already been set up for me, I just had to run down it. It began to feel very unfair that others don’t have that same opportunity. I personally find that fundamentally unfair and unjust. So I have dedicated myself to helping others get that same opportunity.”

Not that he feels he’s given up something to do so. “In many ways,” he says, “it seems like pursuing your purpose is pretty equivalent to pursuing happiness.”

Educate!’s co-leader Eric Glustrom spoke to the crisis of senior year. “I did not know clearly what I was going to do. My friends had no idea what they were going to do,” he says. “Really, I think it is something that comes with the privilege of a place like this. We have so many choices. We have so many interests. We can do so many different things. It is just a problem choosing which one to do.”

The solution, in his case, came in a “moment of obligation” that he describes as “when you see an

opportunity with such promise that not doing something to take advantage of that opportunity would be an injustice in and of itself.”

If recognized, Glustrom says, that moment of obligation sets the course for a journey “that is often times really messy.”

“In hindsight,” he says, “the narrative of someone’s life often times makes a lot of sense. But … going through that narrative [at the time] really does not make that much sense at all.”

“It is really messy,” he says, talking about the year after his college graduation when he survived on M&Ms, dorm food smuggled to him by a student friend, and money made from volunteering for medical studies at a research hospital while trying to advance Educate!

“You just have to jump in and figure it out as you go, do whatever it takes,” he says. “Don’t worry about finding that perfect opportunity, just jump in. Start somewhere …. We are inclined not to like uncertainty, but living with uncertainty and accepting uncertainty as part of life is one of the most important things we can do.” n

“We really had no idea what we were doing.”

— Boris Bulayev

“You just have to jump in and figure it out as you go, do whatever it takes.”

— Eric W. Glustrom


The “Grinnell Soul”It’s Real. It’s Powerful.

It’s Compelling.It’s Just Very,

Very Hard to Describe.by Dan Weeks ’80

Photos by Bill Dennison



What makes Grinnell College distinctive

(defined as “different and excellent” by President Raynard S. Kington)?

The College is conducting surveys, holding town meetings, and inviting emailed comments

(to [email protected] ) on the subject. Responses continue to arrive and inform strategic planning

now underway. Meanwhile, here’s an unscientific overview of anonymous, anecdotal responses —

most of them to an online survey of students, faculty, and staff — to the question,

“What are you most proud of about Grinnell?”


It’s the studentsFaculty members overwhelmingly mention the quality, character, hard work, and idealism of Grinnell’s students, calling them:

smart, kind, optimistic. excellent, conscientious, interesting. progressive in their thinking and eager to learn. wonderful to teach. strong, diverse. the best. amazing. talented. inquisitive. outstanding.

Most notable are adjectives that faculty members use to describe students’ character — something less easily quantified than academic achievement. Repeatedly, they call their students such things as:

transformative and inspirational. sincere and intelligent. supportive and kind. high quality … as minds and persons.

Such genuine appreciation of students on the part of faculty is striking — and telling, as well, of the closeness of faculty-student mentoring here; these are not the kinds of things you say about people you don’t know well.

Faculty members also describe students as hardworking, engaged, conscientious, and committed to making the world a better place:

[I can] expect a lot from them. [They have] enthusiasm [and] will do most anything

you ask them. [They are] eager to learn and willing to do the work. [They are people with a] social conscience. [They are people who] still believe in and care about

many things and have not been swallowed up by apathy.

I see how hard they work and how much they want to make the world a better place.

Comments by two faculty members sum up much of what others say:

I am most proud of my students. They are inquisitive, and work really hard. I’ve met some of the brightest young people I ever had the pleasure of meeting at this school, and that is comparing them to the undergraduate students at an Ivy League school and one of the best state universities.

I am most proud of the students. Under the guidance and mentorship of an amazing faculty, they do amazing things — [such as] start the Liberal Arts in Prison program, the local foods initiative; a great number of them work abroad and at home to effect significant change.

It’s the communityGiven the faculty’s enthusiasm for Grinnell’s students, you might expect similar effusion from students about their own many wonderful traits. Instead, almost unanimously, students mention the exceptional quality of the Grinnell College community. One student called it the “Grinnell Soul.” That student continues:

“The sense of community we have here is outstanding. I feel very pleased to be in such a welcoming environment! Also, because I feel that we have a very competent faculty and staff; the kind of professors who are never ashamed of saying ‘I don’t know the answer to this question’ when they have to, not because they want to skip the question but because they want to come back with an exhaustive explanation of the questions we might have ... I’m loving Grinnell!”

Others explain what they’re proud of about Grinnell: [I’m proud of] the kind of person that Grinnell

College attracts, both as students and professors. I really love almost everyone I have met here.

I believe in my school, my professors, my administrators, and my peers. I could never possibly explain the depth of my gratitude to Grinnell College for giving me a place to find myself. This is the most special place on earth to me, and I will work to make it such a place for others who come after me.

The atmosphere … is so comfortable that almost everybody is very genuine and sincere.

I’ve met some of the brightest young people I ever had the pleasure of meeting at this school.


Faculty, staff, and College personnel are friendly, helpful, and want students to succeed.

It is a place where people can (generally) be 100 percent themselves and always have a group of people who will tirelessly support them. I am, of course, also proud of the academics, but this is what really sets Grinnell apart from other top-tier institutions.

What’s notable here is how inclusive the comments are, referring to “almost everybody,” “the kind of person Grinnell attracts,” “my professors, my administrators, and my peers,” and “faculty, staff, and College personnel” or simply “people.” There’s a distinctly egalitarian flavor here that says “everyone in the community is important.”

Almost as a corollary, several students mention Grinnell’s policy of self-governance:

We students are given a great degree of personal freedom and responsibility. We are treated as the adults that we are and not as the children that we were. Our opinions are sought and our voices are listened to. We manage our own affairs; they are not managed for us. This is the greatest triumph of Grinnell: that it encourages the growth of strong, independently minded individuals.

Self-gov. I believe this freedom has caused me to mature at a rate exponentially faster then my friends at institutions that treat them like children.

It’s the academicsIn addition to their enthusiasm for their students, faculty members appreciate the College’s emphasis on teaching:

[Grinnell is] a top-tier liberal arts college where teaching is the primary role of the faculty.

[There is] institutional support for teaching. [I’m proud of] our dedication to student improvement. Great intellectual work … happens in classrooms

and individual conferences at Grinnell. We create an incredible learning environment and

learning experience for students. We do an exceptional job teaching our students

to be scientists, to read the literature, and to do experiments. I’ve seen or spoken with colleagues about similar classes at [peer and Ivy League institutions], and none of them teach as well as we do, particularly at the introductory levels.

Faculty are also proud of Grinnell’s commitment to the liberal arts:

We offer an excellent and rigorous liberal arts education with a conscience.

[Grinnell combines] incredible academic excellence with the open curriculum.

[Grinnell has a] commitment to the idea of general education and asking big questions.

I’m proud of the job we collectively do in equipping students with the skills requisite to grappling with complex issues in the real world — I’m proud that we can’t teach them all the facts, but that we teach them how to learn what they need to know when they need to know it!

[We enjoy] respect and cooperation among the academic departments — a shared commitment to a broad education for students.

I am also proud of our interdisciplinary courses, particularly our team-taught courses where two faculty with different expertise come together in one classroom.

The learning environment [is] challenging, inquisitive, and caring about social issues and the environment.

It’s the cultureThe faculty is every bit as enthusiastic about the Grinnell community and culture as are students: “The sense of a close academic community here at Grinnell is extraordinary,” says one faculty member. Others laud:

the unpretentiousness of its students and most of its faculty.

the enthusiasm of our faculty, staff, and students. [that] many/most people here … love what they do. [that the] College provides a safe, open, supportive

environment for self-reflection and discovery. the warm, welcoming, friendly atmosphere.

People really care — about the students, about each other, about the place, about learning, about fairness … and that’s what makes the place memorable.


There’s an implied connection between what’s called “atmosphere,” “culture,” “community,” “unpretentiousness,” and “support,” and academic quality. You can see this connection between the lines of both student and faculty comments. One faculty member makes it explicit:

“First on my list would be excellent student/professor interactions. Compared to other places I have been, students are more willing to come to office hours, ask questions in class, and have a positive relationship with the professor. Another thing I am proud of is the way students work in teams to solve problems and succeed collectively. I have rarely seen unhealthy competition for grades.”

For another faculty member, the most distinctive thing about Grinnell is so simple, it’s expressed in three words:

“People really care — about the students, about each other, about the place, about learning, about fairness. Yes, we have a nice campus, good facilities, and pretty good resources. At the base though, people care — and that’s what makes the place memorable.”

It’s the combinationGrinnell College staff members seem to be very good at summing up and tying together distinctive features mentioned by other groups of survey respondents:

[What is important is] the quality of the overall education students receive; the teaching skill of many of our faculty; the genuine caring provided to students by many faculty and staff members; our students’ idealism and social commitment during and, often, after college.

[I’d like Grinnell] to be THE college in America that is known for successfully combining: academic and intellectual rigor and curiosity; a commitment to civility, positivity and self-governance; and a true desire to make the world more just, accepting, and inclusive.

One staff member, who is also an alum, believes the College’s greatest distinction is its

“culture of acceptance, collaboration, inquiry, challenge, and support. This culture — which informs every aspect of the College — is not merely developmental, it is transformative. Students frequently experience an almost discontinuous degree of intellectual, personal, and spiritual growth while here, and yet most manage to emerge more grounded than before.”

An administrator agrees: “Grinnell is for students who think about and care for others; that’s what I am hearing. This is a place that takes some guts to go to (because it is in nowhere) and a place where individuals make a difference and are heard and are mentored and are accepted for who they are. What if Grinnell’s ‘humility’ is really a lack of selfishness that translates to community in a very special way?”

So — perhaps what is most distinctive about Grinnell is its culture: a close, caring, supportive community in which members seek to be self-actualized, but are also other-directed: interested in supporting, collaborating with, helping, and teaching others as a way of learning and being, a way they often take with them when they leave the College.

That culture is instantly and powerfully felt by those visiting campus: prospective students and their families, visiting lecturers and faculty, and guests of the College. Transfer students are especially articulate about how Grinnell’s culture is distinct from other schools — even other small liberal arts schools that seem to share many “data points” with Grinnell. One says:

“I am a transfer student from [another liberal arts institution]. I was very impressed by the academic rigor and opportunities offered [by that school] during my time there. However, in my short time at Grinnell, I have been utterly blown away. … The incredible community of scholars and activists on Grinnell’s campus is unparalleled. The mission of social justice is not only rhetoric … it is truly lived out in the daily lives of Grinnell’s impressive faculty, staff and students. … Faculty, staff and College personnel are friendly, helpful, and want students to succeed. Grinnell College, for me, is a dream come true — a place that will support me and assist me in carrying out my dreams and preparing for the future. Thank you, Grinnell!!”!

Grinnell is a great cookie, a cookie like no other …. But how to explain that taste … to those who haven’t yet had their bite?


Seventy-Seven Percent ExcellentAlthough our information is anecdotal, rather than scientific, as a graduate of a small liberal arts college, you’re statistically likely to be very satisfied with your education.

Presidents at the roughly 130 liberal arts colleges represented by the Annapolis Group [Grinnell is a member] compared survey responses of alumni of the Annapolis Group institutions with those of alumni of private universities, the top 50 public universities and a broader group of public flagship universities. The study found that graduates of Annapolis Group institutions tended to be more satisfied with their experiences as undergraduates, and more likely to believe that their educations had a significant impact on their personal and professional development.

According to the results, 77 percent of alumni from liberal arts colleges rated their undergraduate experience “excellent,” compared to 59 percent of alumni from private universities and 56 percent from the top 50 public universities. Graduates of Annapolis Group member institutions also reported that their college experience made them better prepared for life after college, career changes, and graduate school than did alumni from other sectors. They also reported being as prepared for their first jobs as alumni from other institutions.

The study places a significant amount of credit for that preparation on the structure of the liberal arts education. The report found that students at Annapolis Group institutions were more likely to have classes that required more reading and writing, the types of work that the authors of Academically Adrift concluded led to academic progress. (The authors of Academically Adrift included liberal arts colleges in their study, and found that even students at those institutions did not progress as much as expected.) Liberal arts college alumni also reported that they benefited from interaction with faculty members, small classes, and teaching-oriented faculty members — more so than alumni from other sectors.

The problem with that is that most liberal arts colleges are already at capacity. Annapolis Group institutions serve only about 3 percent of the college-going population. Although they may do a better job graduating underprivileged students, and while they may be cheaper than state colleges after financial aid in some instances, they cannot scale up to meet the human capital needs of states.

The residential liberal arts model is also an expensive one that requires a campus, low student-to-faculty ratios, abundant education resources, and student life amenities. … The Annapolis Group presidents said they hope other institutions and lawmakers, both domestically and abroad, can learn from the study’s findings. They say the model employed by their institutions is one that is successful and valuable, and should influence how other higher education institutions change to meet growing demand for quality degree production.

Excerpted from “Better Than Yours,” an article by Kevin Kiley posted on Inside Higher Education, November 16, 2011. To read the full article: www.grinnell.edu/magazine .

It’s the cookieThe responses — those excerpted here, and the tens of thousands of words that we weren’t able to include in this article for want of space — talk about many of the ingredients that make up Grinnell College: its students, its emphasis on teaching and the liberal arts, its place, its history, its extraordinary sense of community, and its accepting, supportive, collaborative, egalitarian culture. All of these things and more, say respondents, add up to what’s distinctive about Grinnell.

But they don’t add up in the predictable way that integers add up to a sum. They add up in the much-harder-to-explain way in which flour, butter, sugar, eggs, chocolate chips, and heat add up to a cookie. Grinnell is a great cookie, a cookie like no other. People know this is as soon as they get a taste of the place. But how to explain that taste — the essence of it, if not its nuances and overtones — to those who haven’t yet had a bite? What vocabulary should the College use to identify, support, develop, and celebrate what’s distinctively Grinnellian? That’s the challenge of the distinctiveness working group of the strategic planning committee.

They would greatly appreciate insights and suggestions from alumni. Please let them know what you believe to be most distinctive about Grinnell — or to put it another way, what you are most proud of about Grinnell — by emailing your comments to [email protected] .

What if Grinnell’s “humility” is really a lack of selfishness that translates to community in a very special way?

http://collegenews.org/about-the-annapolis-group

http://collegenews.org/news/2011/liberal-arts-college-graduates-feel-better-prepared-for-lifes-challenges-study-finds.html


A LiberalEducation



In 2006 Danish researcher Jesper Eckhardt Larsen praised American colleges for what makes an American education unique. “The college institution,” he said, “tries to carry a large burden of leading to civic engagement, moral responsibility and lately also global and environmental awareness. … There are quite a few good reasons to get inspired by the American model. At its best, the American liberal arts college facilitates a breadth of cultivation. … It is relevant for life rather than just for work; it has a broader agenda than Wissenschaft [knowledge] alone; and it includes ethics, civic engagement, and the instilling of a global outlook in its students. Moreover, it seems to give back to the humanities their inherently educational function [of] inspiring all students.”

The uniquely American model of mass liberal education goes far beyond job preparation, furthering research, educating civil servants, or certifying a social class. It did not evolve by accident. It was deliberately crafted to educate the kind of curious, creative, independent citizens who could best take advantage of the privileges and responsibilities of a free democratic society — one in which one’s aspirations are ideally limited only by one’s merits. This model was funded by philanthropists who believed in placing within their reach, in Andrew Carnegie’s words, “ladders upon which the aspiring can rise.”

Today, grant-funded research and philanthropists with more profit-minded agendas have eroded the liberal education model at most American institutions of higher learning, leaving small liberal arts colleges with an increasingly rare and valuable cultural and educational mission — and one that continues to prove its unique worth.

Liberal Education

In 1945, Harvard published General Education in a Free Society, perhaps the most important document in the history of American higher education. It is a book-length argument that the entire educational system should encourage “certain intangibles of the American spirit” — a spirit that encouraged people not to define themselves through their jobs or stations in life, but as human beings free to explore

all that it means to be human. General Education held that the ultimate goal of education was not abstract intellectual ability or vocational skills, but “mastery of life; and since living is an art, wisdom is the indispensable means to this end.” It also held that such an education was not a utopic ideal, but a practical necessity if the United States were to

continue to lead the world in the decades following World War II as a country made strong by an educated, enlightened, productive population.

General Education’s principles were translated into national educational policy by the six-volume “Truman Report” of 1947 titled Higher Education for American Democracy. It defined a distinctively American educational system as a “means to a more abundant personal life and a stronger, freer social order.” It placed the humanities at the center of the liberal education, as the curricular

instrument for inculcating American identity. The 25 or 30 years that followed are commonly referred to as the “Golden Age” in American higher education.

The Rise of Research

Things changed rapidly during the 1950s. The newly established National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health began pouring federal funding into university science and mathematics, which quickly became dependent on grant-funded research projects. The rapid rise of scientific research transformed American higher education from an innovative combination of educational processes and research activities to a professionalized and research-oriented activity — and not only in science, but in every field, including the humanities.

In his 1963 book The Uses of the University, Clark Kerr, president of the University of California system, described the university as a “knowledge industry” geared to production, research, technology, and industry; to productivity and profits; to the extension of human life; and to military and scientific supremacy. By his death in 2003, Kerr was dismayed by some of the changes he’d forecast: Liberal education and its ideal of moral citizenship had suffered greatly; and although the United

The entire educational system should encourage

“certain intangibles of the

American spirit.”

The United States created a model of liberal education that’s the envy of

the world. So why is it increasingly rare now, when the world needs it most?

by Geoffrey Galt Harpham

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eem

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States had become the unchallenged leader in research, the university had become even more fragmented, and both public and private forms of funding less reliable, than he had anticipated.

Form Follows Funding

Ah, funding. Beginning in the late 19th century, wealthy people in the United States were accustomed to making long-range investments in academic and cultural life. The founding document of philanthropy, Andrew Carnegie’s 1889 essay “The Gospel of Wealth,” argued that if wealth was wasted on luxury it could easily lead to decadence, waste, and corruption; but such corruption could be avoided through the deliberate reduction of wealth through a progressive estate tax and especially through philanthropy.

Traditional forms of giving had not permitted Carnegie to distribute his wealth quickly enough to suit his impatient nature, and had failed to address the root causes of social ills. So, he invented a new mechanism, the private foundation, to do “good works in gross,” as one writer put it.

Carnegie concluded “The Gospel of Wealth” with a list, headed by universities and libraries, of seven areas in which philanthropy could be most effective. “The best means of benefiting the community,” he wrote, is for philanthropists to “place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise.”

Carnegie’s example was followed by fellow capitalists John D. Rockefeller, John Danforth, Henry Ford, Henry Luce, William Randolph Hearst, and by the descendants of Andrew W. Mellon. All targeted higher education in their philanthropic giving.

Now a new generation of “philanthrocapitalists” favor agility, impact, measurable results in a short time, an attention to immediate problems rather than root causes, and exit strategies for the investor. The bare-knuckled capitalists of an earlier time sought the betterment of mankind by supporting institutions they trusted. The new breed wants a quantifiable return on a “social investment.” Compared to the old-school philanthropists, the new order is cold-blooded, rational, and largely indifferent, if not hostile, to liberal education and the humanities, which could never command anything like the same support as scientific, technological, or medical fields.

A Step Backward?

The result of these shifts in higher education function and funding is the evisceration of the idea that virtually defined

American culture after World War II: mass liberal education. With venture philanthropy focusing on donor-defined projects, scientific funding overwhelmingly committed to research, and the National Endowment for the Humanities supporting only a tiny amount of research and little else in colleges and universities, the nation is tacking away from creating more abundant personal lives and a stronger, freer social order through higher education. The ligatures binding American higher education — a system that earned the respect of the world by innovatively coupling liberal education and research and by its expansive vision of human flourishing — are being stretched, frayed, even ruptured.

It is both moving and vexing, at a time when Americans themselves seem to be losing their way with respect to higher education and the larger goals it is intended to serve, to be reminded by the likes of Jesper

Larson how inspiring “the American model” — at least the American model that was — still is to others: a liberal education with the goal of fostering the experience of intellectual freedom that can and should be enjoyed by citizens in a mature democracy. The United States is not the only, or necessarily the purest or the fairest, democracy in the world, but it is the only one so far that has sought to inculcate democratic principles in its educational system.

Best Educational Practice

Liberal education also has another benefit that may interest those concerned about American competitiveness in the new global “knowledge economy.” There is now a good deal of evidence suggesting that liberal education produces the best educational results. Summarizing this evidence, Francis Oakley, former professor of the history of ideas and president of Williams College and an authority on higher education, notes that in the United States, the best outcomes are delivered by those institutions that offer the most concentrated form of liberal education to a select population eager to receive it: liberal arts colleges, and especially the best liberal arts colleges.

According to Oakley, those institutions educate best that adhere most closely to the classical ideal of liberal education: “The selective private liberal arts college, perhaps more than any other institution of American higher education, exemplifies much of what has come to be known as best educational practice in undergraduate education. … students who attend selective liberal arts colleges will enjoy unique educational benefits.”

The very best liberal arts colleges can hardly be taken as a model or even as a plausible ideal for the thousands of

The ligatures binding American higher

education — a system that earned the respect of the world … — are being stretched, frayed,

even ruptured.


American institutions of higher education. By one account, only 8 percent of all institutions of higher education in the United States offer a program of liberal education, and of those that do, liberal arts colleges represent a tiny fraction.

But virtually all the institutions of higher education in the United States that enjoy broad and favorable public recognition are committed to some kind of liberal education, including Cal Tech and MIT. In the enormous and diverse context of American higher education, the results achieved by liberal arts colleges serve to underscore the value of liberal education in all kinds of institutions. Even the authors of the widely noticed recent book Academically Adrift, which offers a harsh critique of American higher education for its failure to improve the learning skills of its students, carve out an exception for students in liberal arts fields, who show “significantly higher gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills over time than students in other fields of study.”

The most boldly imaginative aspect of the post-World War II compact was its noble attempt to create a society unified by the common opportunity to rise through education to the level of one’s merits. This country was not built on the idea of inherited inequality, and immigrants did not come here dreaming that their grandchildren would comprise a permanent helot class, fit only to be trained rather than educated. In addition to its proven educational benefits, liberal education, which tries to “place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise,” as Carnegie put it, gives substance to the promise of democracy.

Higher education’s mission is to encourage people to reach higher than they might have thought possible. Education is not higher if it simply mirrors the preferences

and immediate desires of society. That perspective must be informed by a concern for the deeper, long-term needs of a particular time, place, and community. The challenge for higher education is to find a balance between a reasonable and rational willingness to adapt its own structures and premises in light of ever-changing facts, and an insistence that the real goals are not immediate, economic, or vocational, but goals of a different kind: the promotion of more abundant personal lives and a freer, stronger social order.

There is a hidden genius in these banalities. Indeed, we must make every effort to reclaim, reactivate, and reinvigorate our own clichés. They are the envy of the world, and rightfully so. n

This article is an adaption of a lecture entitled “From Eternity to Here: Shrinkage in American Thinking about

Higher Education” by Geoffrey Galt Harpham in the Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center on Grinnell’s campus, Sept. 27, 2011. You can read the full text of the lecture at www.grinnell.edu/magextras . Harpham is director of the National Humanities Center (www.nationalhumanitiescenter.org) in Research Triangle Park, N.C., the only institute worldwide fully dedicated to the advanced study of humanities. Harpham is a literary scholar and author of several books on the role of ethics in literary analysis and the role of language in intellectual history, His lecture was sponsored by Grinnell’s Center for the Humanities (www.grinnell.edu/

academic/centhumanities), which supports research, teaching, talks, discussions, and symposia that focus on scholarly work across disciplines and historical periods. The activities of the center focus on an annual theme; for 2011–12 the theme is “Humanities Now.”

Immigrants did not come here dreaming that

their grandchildren would comprise

a permanent helot class.

Rare — But Powerful

In 2010, the Carnegie Foundation counted 4,634 higher education institutions in the United States. These enrolled a total of 20,727,586 students in undergraduate programs. Of those, just 270 colleges — including Grinnell and its peer institutions — offered “arts and sciences” programs (a Carnegie Foundation classification that most closely aligns with liberal arts colleges) to a total of 458,753 students.

That means that Grinnell College and others like it educate only 2.2 percent of the baccalaureate-seeking population in this country.

Yet according to the Carnegie Foundation, that 2.2 percent yields 11.53 percent of society’s leaders, including 12.25 percent of the “Philanthropy 400” leaders, 12 percent of the U.S. senators, and 10.87 percent of the “Fortune 500” CEOs.

http://www.nationalhumanitiescenter.org

http://www.nationalhumanitiescenter.org



It was the summer of 1970. Carol [Martinson Cech ’70] and I had spent four years at Grinnell College. Newly married, we drove westward to the graduate program in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. How would our liberal arts education serve us in the Ph.D. program of one of the world’s great research universities? As we met our new classmates, we found Berkeley graduate students were not only university graduates. They also hailed from a diverse collection of colleges — many of them less well-known than Grinnell. And as we took our qualifying examinations and struggled with quantum mechanics problem sets, any residual apprehension about the quality of our undergraduate training evaporated. Through some combination of what our professors had taught us and our own hard work, we were well-prepared for science at the research university level.

We were not alone. Liberal arts colleges produce about twice as many eventual science Ph.D.s per graduate as do baccalaureate institutions in general, and top colleges vie with the nation’s very best research universities in their efficient production of eventual science Ph.D.s. Considering that those liberal arts students major in English, history, art, and other humanities disciplines as well as in science, this is an astounding number.

Furthermore, when highly successful scientists compare their liberal arts college education to what they likely would have received at a large research university, most rate their college experience as a substantial advantage to their career.

Let me note that I am a confessed enthusiast and supporter of small, selective liberal arts colleges; I also teach undergraduates in the classroom and in my research laboratory at the University of Colorado, a

research university. I may be too close to this subject to be unbiased, so I have gathered statistics that quantify some aspects of the success of science education in liberal arts colleges versus research universities. I also have interviewed scientists who have achieved the highest levels of success in academia and government to obtain their perspectives on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the preparation afforded by liberal arts colleges, and have

sought the counsel of some of the country’s best college science teacher-scholars. Others who have analyzed the subject have independently come to similar conclusions, providing some confidence that this shared view must not be too far off the mark.

So, why does the liberal arts education receive the accolades?

Small Classes.

At colleges, introductory classes of about 50 students and upper-level science courses of about a dozen

students are the norm. At research universities, the numbers may be as high as 500 and 100, respectively. Small classes provide opportunity for students to engage actively in the learning process; large classes tend to make students passive recipients of information.

An Emphasis on Teaching.

Many research university professors enjoy teaching, but rarely is it their first love. They were trained primarily as researchers. Liberal arts faculty members are committed to teaching by career choice and are more accessible to students inside and outside class. Students respond by being much more interactive with faculty — willing to explore questions in depth, stopping by the office, even calling faculty at home.

A Better Way to Teach ScienceA Grinnell alumnus and Nobel laureate in chemistry explains.

by Thomas R. Cech ’70

How would our liberal

arts education serve us

in the Ph.D. program of

one of the world’s great

research universities?


Phot

o: B

ill D

enni

son


University science teaching also has features in which it excels. Teachers who are working at the leading edge of their field, perhaps even defining the leading edge, can bring a special type of excitement to their teaching. In some cases they share their new discoveries or those of their colleagues with their undergraduate class. They are more likely than their liberal arts college counterparts to know what material in the textbook is of current interest, and what has remained there through inertia. Thus, in some respects college teaching and research university teaching should be considered different, and not just a matter of superior versus inferior.

Inquiry-based Learning.

Many liberal arts colleges integrate more open-ended, less-predictable laboratory projects even in introductory courses, making them more like miniresearch experiences. Research universities are constrained by large class sizes and low budgets, so inquiry-based laboratories tend to be reserved for upper-class science majors.

No Teaching Assistants.

University labs are almost always supervised by graduate-student teaching assistants (TAs). College labs are typically taught by the same full-time faculty members who teach the

classroom sessions, assuring continuity between classroom and lab. Even more important, the college professor is more experienced, more committed to education, and probably more patient than a typical graduate TA.

A Better Undergraduate Research Experience.

At both colleges and research universities, science majors are strongly encouraged to do faculty-guided independent research. But in spite of the large grants, expensive equipment, and famous laboratories available at research universities, there is no evidence that their undergraduates do better research. At colleges, undergraduate research largely determines the research productivity of the laboratory; research universities depend on the work of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and technical staff for the primary results of the lab. Independent research at liberal arts colleges often is not as cutting-edge as that at research universities, but it benefits from one-on-one interactions between students and faculty mentors, making for an experience often surpassing that at large universities. Absent roomfuls of graduate or postdoctoral students with expertise in every imaginable procedure, liberal arts science students learn to be self-reliant and innovative. Those who have experienced research as liberal arts students prize it greatly and consider it highly influential in their development as scientists.

author tom cech ’70

lecturing.


The Father of Silicon ValleySpeaking of the value of a liberal arts education to future scientists: Anyone who has walked past the Robert N. Noyce ’49 Science Center on campus is aware that Noyce, co-inventor of the silicon chip, co-founder of Intel Corp., and “the father of the Silicon Valley!” (in the words of archjournalist Tom Wolfe) was a Grinnell graduate.

What fewer may realize is that Noyce couldn’t have received better preparation for the role in any institution of higher learning in the country, including MIT, where he later attended graduate school. In an article in the December 1983 issue of Esquire titled “The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce: How the Sun Rose on the Silicon Valley,” Tom Wolfe wrote that, in 1948, Grant Gale, Grinnell College professor of physics, “obtained two of the first transistors ever made, and he presented the first academic instruction in solid-state electronics available anywhere in the world, for the benefit of the 18 students majoring in physics at Grinnell College.”

Later in the piece, Wolfe noted: “Bob [Noyce] was not the only physics major interested in the transistor, but he was the one who seemed most curious about where this novel mechanism might lead. He went off to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, in the fall to begin his graduate work. When he brought up the subject of the transistor at MIT, even to faculty members, people just looked at him. Even those who had heard of it regarded it merely as a novelty fabricated by the telephone company. There was no course work involving transistors or the theory of solid-state electronics. Noyce’s dissertation was titled ‘Photoelectric Study of Surface States on Insulators,’ which was at best merely background for solid-state electronics. In this area MIT was far behind Grinnell College. For a good four years Grant Gale remained one of the few people Bob Noyce could compare notes with in this new field.”

And later: “MIT had proved to be a backwater … the sticks … when it came to the most advanced form of engineering, solid-state electronics. Grinnell College, with its 1,000 students, had been years ahead of MIT.”

If you’re interested in reading Wolfe’s entire article, which is quite entertaining and seems to spend as much time characterizing J.B. Grinnell, Grinnell, Iowa, and Grinnell College as it does Robert Noyce, you can find the full text on our website: www.grinnell.edu/magextras.

Cross-training in the Humanities and Arts.

The study of great books, history, languages, music, and many other nonscience fields hones a scientist’s ability to perceive and interpret the natural world. In history, literature, and the arts one is presented with diverse, often mutually contradictory “data.” One learns to distill the critical elements from the irrelevant, synthesize seemingly discordant observations, and develop a strong argument. While scientific data are commonly thought to exist on a different plane — absolute, precise, unambiguous, and above reproach — such is rarely the case. Scientists need the same skills as humanists to cut through misleading observations and arrive at a defensible interpretation, and intellectual cross-training may develop these skills more effectively than writing yet another lab report.

The Development of Communication Skills.

Even brilliant research makes no impact unless its results are communicated. My present ability, such as it is, to distill the results of structural analysis into paragraphs of text I attribute to hours spent analyzing English verse. Experience in drama and oral interpretation of texts has helped me with science lectures. Writing papers for humanities classes allows students to develop skills in stating their positions, evaluating them critically, presenting evidence, and organizing their arguments. Sketching, painting, and sculpting develop skills in perception and in the construction of visual aids that illustrate scientific observations. The value of the broadening experience of a liberal arts education is unlikely to be quantifiable. Nevertheless, many of us who have enjoyed such an education are convinced that it has benefited us as scientists, in addition to the stated goal of a liberal arts college education: to enhance one’s whole life.

The heart and soul of liberal arts colleges is the personalized approach to education and the committed faculty, which add up to a very expensive approach to higher education. The challenge to continue to make such an education available to students with diverse economic backgrounds cuts across disciplines, and that challenge is not specific to the sciences. This is the challenge of the liberal arts college in the 21st century. n

Thomas R. Cech ’70 won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1989 and is Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado, Boulder, president of Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and a Grinnell College trustee. This essay is based on his article titled “Science at Liberal Arts Colleges: A Better Education?” published in Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Winter 1999. You can read the full text on our website: www.grinnell.edu/magextras.


A Predilection for Ph.Ds.Grinnell College produces a distinctively high number of graduates who earn Ph.Ds. Why?

by Dan Weeks ’80

Grinnell College ranks No. 7 in the nation in the percentage of its graduates who go on to

earn Ph.D.s, according to the Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium. That’s below

MIT (No. 5), but above Harvard, Princeton, and Yale (Nos. 12, 13, and 14, respectively).

More specifically, Grinnell ranks No. 2 in the production of both economics and foreign

language Ph.Ds, No. 3 in anthropologists, and in the top 20 in the disciplines of psychology,

sociology, agricultural science, biology, chemistry, physics, religion and theology, history,

and political science and public administration. That’s an amazing feat.



What’s going on here?

In the Spring 2011 issue, we asked for your thoughts on why Grinnell is so well represented in doctoral programs. With heartfelt thanks to the many who responded, here are some of the recurring themes in the responses we received:

Expectation

Because it seemed like the thing to do. — Richard Catrambrone ’82 (psychology)

Ph.D., experimental psychology, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor;

professor of psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta

It seemed like the normal thing to do because so many students from Grinnell enrolled in a wide variety of graduate programs.

— Lisa Jepsen ’89, pictured, (economics)Ph.D., economics, Vanderbilt University;

associate professor, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa

Faculty expected students to attend graduate school. Grinnell may be a “Ph.D.-producing powerhouse” because that is the expectation it creates. Whether through lack of exposure to alternatives or lack of imagination, many students continue in academia.

— Ed (Tews) Stanford ’99 (studio art/secondary education)

M.A. education, Loyola College in Maryland; Montessori guide, Titoki Montessori School

Grinnell’s mantra of achievement and discovery encourages you to seek out opportunities.

— Constanza Ocampo-Raeder ’95 (biology)Ph.D., anthropology, Stanford University;

assistant professor of anthropology, University of Maine-Orono

Inspiration

Exposure to a whole new culture of ideas stemming from faculty, coffee hours, and guest lectures that engendered an excitement about learning.

— Tom Frantz ’63 (physical education)Ph.D., school and educational psychology,

University of Iowa; Professor emeritus, State University of New York at Buffalo

A liberal arts background is course work in creativity. For Ph.D.s [and] those in academia, scholarship is about creating what wasn’t there before; therefore people have to be creative to find and understand new things. Creative people in a creative place make for creative graduates. Also, social responsibility is huge at Grinnell, and contributing to the knowledge of mankind is seen as a worthy, socially responsible endeavor.

— Kate Anderson O’Connell ’02(math and economics)

Ph.D., economics, University of MichiganAssistant professor of economics and

entrepeneurship, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh

Modeling

Impactful relations with faculty led to the desire to mirror that interaction as a professor.

— Andrew Greenlee ’04 (English and sociology)Ph.D, urban planning and policy,

University of Illinois-ChicagoAssistant professor, University of

Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Our profs showed that getting a doctorate and using it in academia is a wonderful and honorable way to live your life. They were skilled teachers and researchers who also managed to have “a life” outside of academics.

— Hyacinth Mason ’85 (biology)Ph.D., epidemiology,

University of Southern CaliforniaResearch assistant professor,

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.

An appreciation for teaching. That is why I went to grad school in the first place: to be able to teach history at a place like Grinnell.

— Alex Dracobly ’87 (history)Ph.D., history, University of Chicago

Senior instructor of history, University of Oregon-Eugene

A Predilection for Ph.Ds.

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A combination

Many responses referred to a combination of Grinnell College features that encouraged a Ph.D. Here are a few of those responses:

Because I wanted to give back to others what Grinnell had given me: a sense of community, a sense of purpose, and a desire to teach and mentor. I was torn between chemistry, physics, and math, and settled on physics because of the mathematical rigor that was well connected to the physical world. To be honest, Grinnell didn’t prepare me particularly well for graduate school in physics. Most of my peers in grad

school had had two or three physics courses every single semester while they were undergrads, and I’d only had one or, rarely, two. I had to catch up quickly, and almost didn’t. I did have a leg up on them when it came to teaching, because Grinnell taught me how to communicate far better my peers. One of the hardest parts about leaving academics was the loss of interactions with students, so I now teach science-based public policy at both Georgetown University and George Washington University.

— Benn Tannenbaum ’90 (physics)

Ph.D., physics, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque; Postdoctoral work, physics, University of

California-Los Angeles;Director, Sandia National Laboratories’

Washington, D.C. program office

The faculty. At a critical moment, Bob Haveman, [professor of economics], asked me, “Have you ever considered going to graduate school in economics?” “Why?” I asked. “To teach,” he responded. I had always thought of being a teacher, but rejected it because I couldn’t contemplate disciplining precollege students. I had never contemplated having the capacity to do graduate work. But Haveman had. He counseled me on selecting graduate programs, wrote recommendations, and worked directly with one of his graduate professors to get me a full fellowship at Vanderbilt, where I went. He is why I did what I did professionally. And other professors only reinforced that path.

The curriculum. We used original texts. No nicely outlined textbooks, with ideas in bold print and easy collections of things to know and remember. We had to dig into the text itself, figure out what it was (and wasn’t) saying, how that related to other texts. … This gave me intellectual confidence — that I could read, think, and, most importantly, write persuasively, whether the subject matter was economics, political science, philosophy, music, or anything else.

I’ve never regretted the choice I made. I give Grinnell and the faculty all the credit for preparing me and channeling me in that direction. I often say I went to a liberal arts college, loved it, and found a way to stay there for my professional career. And did (though I flirted several times with becoming a business economist instead.) I have always been grateful for this.

— John Pilgrim ’65 (economics)Ph.D., economics, Vanderbilt University,

Nashville, Tenn.; Retired in 2003 as vice president for administration and adjunct professor of

economics at Millsaps College, Jackson, Miss.; now a global and community volunteer


Small class size, interactive classes, and direct contact with doctoral-level professors gave me self-confidence, and enabled me to become more articulate and a better communicator (both written and verbal).

The opportunity to participate in research as an undergraduate: Under Thomas Brozoski’s [professor of psychology] supervision, I became a research assistant for student Randy Seeley’s [class of 1989] undergraduate research my junior year and then conducted my own research project with Brozoski during my senior year. This research experience was essential for getting into a graduate program and usually not available for most undergraduates from other colleges and universities!

Grinnell’s encouragement to spend a semester on internship. I was advised to work as a research assistant at the National Institute of Mental Health’s Lab of Developmental Psychology in Bethesda, Md. Again, at the time I had no idea how important and life-changing this experience would be.

David Lopatto’s [professor of psychology] Advanced Research Design class, which focused on analyzing research studies, using statistical analyses, and orally presenting our findings every two weeks throughout the semester. This was a small (perhaps five or six students) but challenging and intimidating class, through which I learned so much and gained great confidence.

The opportunity to participate, often as a lead actor, in theatre productions. These opportunities for nontheatre majors are usually not available at larger schools.

Again, through theatre, I gained self-confidence as well as the skills to speak and perform in front of audiences. These presentation skills have been invaluable when called upon to teach psychology courses, when interviewing for graduate school and internships, and also when doing therapy. Sandy Moffett, professor emeritus of theatre, also taught us, in our acting class and production rehearsals, about being present, in the moment, and focused — all skills that I continue to apply in my work as a psychologist.

Encouragement and resources to do community service. Mitch Snyder, the homeless activist and founder of the Community for Creative Nonviolence in Washington, D.C., came to speak during my first year and inspired me and a number of other students, to begin volunteering every weekend at homeless shelter in Des Moines [Iowa]. This and other great volunteer opportunities helped form my ideas of what I wanted to do with my life after Grinnell; mainly, working with people suffering with mental illness. Here my psychology and theatre experiences came together, and I found that just being present in the moment and listening to someone with honesty and empathy was an amazing experience that could potentially be helpful to others.

— Karen Lehman ’90 (psychology) Ph.D., child/clinical psychology, University of Washington-Seattle

Clinical psychologist, Santa Barbara, Calif.n

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CLASSNOTES

Submit your Classnotes to:

Classnotes 866-850-1846 Office of Development and Alumni Relations Email: [email protected] College Website: www.grinnell.edu/alumni Grinnell, IA 50112

Deadlines: Spring 2012 Issue — January 6, 2012 Summer 2012 Issue — April 13, 2012

1937Eve James Park won the Senior Spelling Bee in Du Page County, Illinois, July 2011. She competed in one of the four elimination contests before winning the final spelldown.

1942Phyllis Rutledge Vierheller lives at the Bethesda Retirement Community in St. Louis, where she is in charge of the library. Her memories include those of her uncle going hunting with President Ronald Reagan before he became a famous actor. She served in the Coast Guard training new women recruits. After serving she was married to Alan Vierheller (a Naval officer). After World War II, she returned to Grinnell, where she taught a course on euthenics. She taught women students proper etiquette and social graces.

1943Clair C. Patterson, who died in 1995, was featured in an article in the Pasadena Star-News, titled “This geologist got the lead out,” May 2011. It called Patterson the “most influential geologist of the 20th century.”

1961“The Interactive Global Struggle Against Impunity for Salvadoran Human Rights Violators,” a paper by Duane Krohnke, was presented at a symposium at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, September 2011. The paper is rooted in Krohnke’s pro bono legal representation of Salvadoran refugees.

1965After 24 years of service, Marion “Meb” Benesch Ingold retired from her position as children’s services director at LaGrange Park Public Library in LaGrange Park, Ill., August 2011.

Kenton J. Clymer was named a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C., September 2011. He is writing a book, which he hopes to complete by the end of his stay at the Wilson Center, detailing the history of United States relations with Burma.

1967 45th Reunion Cluster

Greg P. Robinson retired after 25 years from his position as pastor at Oakland Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Columbia, Miss., July 2011. He has served 41 years as a minister.

Linda Todaro La Roche and her domestic partner, James Hastrich, were guest artists at the Toy and Miniature Museum in Kansas City, Mo., June 2011. The museum owns several commissioned examples of their small-scale furniture pieces. They offered PowerPoint presentations, workshops, and gallery tours relating to their work, describing the historical research and woodworking techniques required to create the pieces.

1970John A. Eckstein received the St. Thomas More Award from the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Colorado, Denver, September 2011. The award is given to individuals who exemplify the intellect, integrity, and moral courage of St. Thomas More in service to God, family, and profession.

Gary M. Giddins was named acting director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the City University of New York Graduate Center, September 2011. He is a distinguished lecturer at the center, where he teaches courses in American cultural history.


Thomas A. Thornhill, partner and leader of Parducci Wine Cellars, Mendocino County, Calif., accepted the Botanical Research Insitute of Texas 2011 International Award of Excellence in Sustainable Wine Growing, October 2011. Parducci is one of the oldest wineries in Mendocino County and is recognized as America’s greenest winery. The research institute is an international scientific research and learning center focused on conservation and knowledge-sharing.


1974John A. Bloom was appointed chair of the chemistry, physics, and engineering department at Biola University, La Marida, Calif., July 2010. He also serves as academic director of a graduate program in science and religion at Biola.

1976Scott P. Fackrell was commissioned into the U.S. Navy Reserves Medical Corps, May 2011. He was sworn in by his brother, Commander Michael Fackrell.

Brent L. Schondelmeyer was named president of the Mid-Continent Public Library board of trustees in the Kansas City, Mo., area, July 2011. The three-county library system serves more than 800,000 patrons through 30 branches.


Lucinda F. Buhse won the 2011 St. Louis Award, given by the St. Louis Section of the American Chemical Society. Buhse is director of the St. Louis-based Division of Pharmaceutical Analysis, a laboratory of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Otto Mayr, Laura “Lola” Baltzell ’83, Lucy Zahner Montgomery ’83, Lynn E. Waskelis ’83, and others on Team Tolstoy, a group of artists that meet in an East Boston studio to make collages from each page of the Russian edition of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, continue to work on their project. They have been invited to exhibit the collection at Yasnaya Polyana, the Tolstoy Museum and Estate in Tula, Russia, next summer. The show will coincide with the Tolstoy family reunion June–September 2012. A new collage is posted daily at warpeaceproject.blogspot.com.

1983Carl Pfirman recently completed editorial work on a film called The Hill That Chris Climbed, about high school football spinal injuries, for Peter Berg, executive producer. Berg created and directed the TV show Friday Night Lights. Pfirman also began editing a documentary called Limited Partnership, about a married binational gay couple’s 40-year struggle with the federal government to remain in the United States.

1985Rabbi Alan M. Abrams received a full supervisor certification from the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, the leading organization for the education of chaplains and other spiritual caregivers in the United States, October 2011.

1986Mary Jo Trepka received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the National Science and Technology Council for her studies in racial disparity in AIDS survival. Dr. Trepka is an associate professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at Florida International University’s Robert Stempel College of Public Health. The 94 recipients were recognized at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., October 2011.

1987 25th Reunion

James C. Lyon, president and founder of ActionCoach of Northern New England, recently attained Gold Level status from the nationally acclaimed ActionCoach coaching firm, recognizing him as a Top-Tier business coach, Portland, Maine, August 2011.

Eleonore Spiegel Stump ’69 Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering by Eleonore Spiegel Stump, Professor of Philosophy, St. Louis University, weaves theology, philosophy, and Biblical studies to defend traditional Christian understandings of the problem of suffering. The work was called “her magnum opus” by the Religious Studies Review. Oxford University Press USA, New York, September 2011.


Meet Your MeatDevora Kimelman-Block ’93 is founder of Kol Foods (www.kolfoods.com) — a definitively niche business even in the burgeoning eco-conscious food economy. Headquartered in Silver Springs, Maryland, Kol Foods is a sustainable kosher butcher shop, serving meat from animals that were 100 percent grass-fed and from farms with humane working conditions.

“We have two things that we are trying to do,” says Kimelman-Block, who spoke in November at Grinnell with other Jewish alums who do social justice work around food. “One-hundred-percent grass-fed, sustainable, healthy meat and an honest, transparent company that tells stories of where our meat comes from. Both of those are pretty unique in the market.”

Despite — or perhaps because of — these multiple requirements, the butchery has been a financial success since opening in 2007. “I’m quite surprised I have been able to start a business and make a profit in a recession,” Kimelman-Block says. “That says something about how the strong the passion about this is nationally.”

Kol Food’s future depends on a number of factors: the economy’s overall recovery, identifying more farmers that can supply kosher, grass-


Bruce Emond appeared on the Indonesian TV talk show Barometer to discuss Britain’s royal wedding in April. He is the editor of The Jakarta Post Weekender magazine. He also translated the travel booklet, Celebes, currently used on all domestic flights of Garuda Indonesia, Indonesia’s national airline.


Julieanne I. Ehre served as a U.S. delegate to the 33rd International Theatre Institute’s World Congress in Xiamen, China, September 2011. The theme of the World Congress was “Empowering the Performing Arts: A Journey through Xiqu.”

Thomas J. Meglioranza sang as baritone for a recording of J.S. Bach: Trauer-Music: Music to Mourn Prince Leopold, a newly reconstructed Bach cantata performed with conductor Andrew Parrott and the Taverner Consort, released in November 2011.


Kartik Sheth was interviewed by Wired Science in an article, “Giant Radio Telescope Sees Inside Galactic Smash-Up,” October 2011.

Rachel R. Bly announced her candidacy for state representative in the new Iowa House District 76, which includes all of Poweshiek County (home to Grinnell College) and large parts of Iowa County in central Iowa, November 2011. She is director of conference operations and events at Grinnell College.

1994Kerry W. Bart began his 10th year of ordained ministry as the pastor of the Campbelltown (Pa.) United Methodist Church.

1995 Adrianna “Annie” Smith was named head softball coach at Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Ga., 2011.

1996Thomas A. Zlabinger, bass player and director of the York College Big Band, York College Blue Notes, and York College summer jazz program in New York, was featured in the “Listen Up!” column of New York’s jazz newspaper, The New York City Jazz Record, August 2011.

1997Alice M. Kloker was appointed director of education abroad at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, July 2011.

Jeremy D. Boley accepted a position as environment officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development and is serving at his first post in Lima, Peru, October 2011.

1999April L. Dobbins appeared as a model in Catfish Alley, a regional magazine for the Golden Triangle in eastern Mississippi, fall 2011.

2003Matthew B. Dank accepted a position as manager of research operations at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, 2011. He also started his own law practice, Applied Legal Resources, Ridgewood, N.J.

Patrick J. Midtlyng accepted the position of sound archivist in the Belfer Audio Archive at the Syracuse University Library, Syracuse, N.Y., September 2011. The position was established with a grant from the Mellon Foundation to revitalize Belfer’s research agenda and to ensure that the Belfer is valued within the academic community.

Nicole Etcheson ’85 A Generation At War: The Civil War Era in A Northern Community, by Nicole Etcheson, Professor of History, Ball State University, studies the Civil War’s impact on Putnam County, Indiana, from the Compromise of 1850 to the end of Reconstruction, and shows how its citizens were affected by the war. University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, Kan., October 2011.


fed meat, and developing a broader base of consumers who are willing to pay more for meat because of where it comes from. It also depends on public policies that better acknowledge food’s origins.

Kimelman-Block says that the politics of food “was not really on my radar when I was at Grinnell,” and did not become a central passion of hers until the last decade.

“There was an article in the New York Times magazine in 2001 by Michael Pollan,” she says. “He wanted learn where his meat came from and so he bought a cow and followed it around. I was fascinated that this was on the front page of the magazine.”

Eventually, she says, “I wanted to be not just hearing stuff but doing stuff.” Perhaps surprisingly for a social justice-oriented Grinnell alum, doing something meant starting a business. Kimelman-Block quit her nonprofit job doing educational technology for the Jesuit Secondary Education Association. She made the move after identifying her first farmer and first customer base, a synagogue in Washington, D.C.

“I started this as a hobby,” she says. “But it turned out this was of interest to the general population. I had a group from Philadelphia that would drive down to buy meat. I had some investors that came to me. So

I said okay to the investors, quit my job and started my business.”The business has expanded to include meat-buying clubs in 12

cities. Its success is partly facilitated by Kimelman-Block’s husband, Rabbi Jason Kimelman-Block, who has made use of his contacts at Jewish Progressive Alliance to find customers. And it is partly due to a small network of Amish farmers just north of Silver Springs that has supplied much of the produce.

Kimelman-Block sees herself as part of a budding group of “social entrepreneurs” who “develop supply chains that benefit everybody in that chain — instead of just trying to get something cheap out of somebody.”

“For people in Gen X and Gen Y it’s not strange to have this value-based business,” she says.

But Kimelman-Block argues that the only way transparent, ethically made meat can keep being profitable is through a change in government policies. “Business can only do so much. We certainly do a lot, but we can’t work in a vacuum,” she says. “If oil prices skyrocketed and the farm subsidies went away and they stopped feeding animals antibiotics, that would profoundly change the industry.”

— Matthew Blake ’04

2004Sarah Labowitz was named one of 99 most influential international professionals under 33 by the Diplomatic Courier, fall 2011.

Shaun Southworth accepted the position of litigation associate with the national law firm Chamberlain Hrdlicka in Atlanta, August 2011. He will focus on labor and employment counseling and litigation, including the defense of complex class-action claims on behalf of large nationwide employers.

2007Elizabeth A. Ward ran the Devil’s Challenge Triathlon, Baraboo, Wis., September 2011 and the Hot Chocolate 15K in Chicago, November 2011. She was also cast on a Harold team at iO Chicago, an improv-comedy theatre. She is an agency associate at Chicago’s Windish Agency, which handles bookings for artists in the United States and Canada as well as some international venues.

2008Amy E. Drake accepted the position of curator of special projects at the Southern Oregon Historical Society, Medford, July 2011.

2010Jacques Ambrose was named the 2011 Robert K. Murakami Scholar by the Hawaii Veterans Memorial Fund, September 2011. The fund, established in 1945, chooses graduate students who best exemplify academic achievements, professional aspirations, and a personal commitment to social justice and community service. Ambrose is a second-year student at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu.

DegreesDouglas E. Krueger ’83, Ph.D., philosophy, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2011. He is a philosophy instructor at Northwest Arkansas Community College, Bentonville.

Stephanie K. Hitztaler ’96, Ph.D., natural resources and environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, August 2010.

Alice B. Gates ’97, Ph.D., sociology and social work, Univeristy of Michigan, Ann Arbor, June 2011. She is a visiting assistant professor of social work at the University of Portland (Oregon).

Alina Borger-Germann ’99, M.A. with honors, creative writing, Regis University, Denver, August 2011.

Troy J. Dougherty ’00, Ed.D., higher education administration, Idaho State University, Pocatello, July 2011. He is director of housing and student living at Brigham Young University-Idaho, Rexburg.

Amanda C. Perry ’03, master’s in community development, University of California-Davis, June 2011.

Kenneth C. Yeung ’03, M.B.A. in finance, economics, and marketing, Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York, May 2010.

Anne C. Feltovich ’03, Ph.D., classics, University of Cincinnati, June 2011. She is a visiting assistant professor at Grinnell College, 2011–12.

Amanda Cook Demolli ’03, M.A. in economic development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., May 2011. She began work on a Ph.D. in economics at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., August 2011.

Katherine C. Michaelsen ’03, M.D., University of Washington (Seattle) School of Medicine, 2010. She is working on the second year of her psychiatry residency at Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

Becky Meyer Pourchot ’94 I Look Better in Binary by Becky Meyer Pourchot tells of her adventures through puberty with poignancy and humor. Her stories present a funny and slightly neurotic girl who makes her way through the world, one embarrassing experience after another in a unique-but-familiar coming-of-age narrative about discovering herself by facing her fears. Laughing Tiger Publications, Florida, October 2011.


Bookers to the BandsJohn Chavez ’05, left, and Carter Adams ’04, opposite, entered Grinnell as music lovers at a time of revolutionary disruption in the music industry. Adams’ 2000-01 freshman year coincided with the meteoric rise, then legal shutdown of Napster, which triggered the rapid decline of sales of recorded music. Even after Napster’s

demise, various iterations of Internet file sharing, as well as innovations from iTunes to YouTube, continued to eat away at sales.

Yet both Carter and Chavez have thrived in the new — and arguably more artist-empowered — music industry thanks to their continued love for live music. They each book shows for rap groups, bands and deejays doing electronic music from computers and synthesizers, as well as rock bands.

“People are not buying nearly as many recordings,” Adams says. “So how do bands make money? By going on the road. So we’re growing massively because bands that didn’t tour 10 years ago tour now.”

Adams and Chavez got their first taste of booking shows by chairing the Grinnell Concerts Committee — Adams in 2001-02, and Chavez in 2002-03 and 2003-04.

“Grinnell let me get the hang of booking/budgeting shows and contacting booking agents,” Chavez says. “Now I’m the one getting emails from college kids.” As an agent with Ground Control touring in New York (www.groundcontroltouring.com), he books a roster of 35 world-touring bands.

Adams, meanwhile, moved to Chicago in 2005 and contacted Tom Windish, whom he knew from Grinnell as the booking agent for the band Low. Windish was starting his own firm, the Windish Agency (www.windishagency.com) and gave Adams an administrative job.

Adams rose quickly, thanks to his continual pursuit of new music. “I would suggest bands to Tom,” Adams says. “I recommended Flying Lotus. I also told him about the band Skream and Benga that’s doing dub step (a mostly instrumental kind of electronic music that originated in late 90s London), which is really big in England. I started building a roster of bands.”

In that way, Adams and Chavez are much like record-label talent scouts, except the end result is a concert tour, not a record album. They

Leigh “Alison” Phillips ’03, Ph.D. in psychology, Rutgers University, Newark, N.J., October 2011.

Joa Taylor Carlson ’03, master of social work, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, June 2011; master of public policy, University of Minnesota, August 2011.

Sarah E. Alward ’03, master of landscape architecture, School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2011. She works for Conservation Design Forum, a landscape architecture firm that specializes in echological design, Elmhurst, Ill.

Jonathan H. Cell ’04, M.B.A., Harvard Business School, Boston, Mass., May 2011.

Michael B. Miller ’04, Ph.D., biochemistry, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, N.H., June 2011.

Jonathan L. Wellons ’04, Ph.D., computer science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., 2011.

Erika Doot ’05, J.D., magna cum laude and a certificate in environmental and natural resources law, Lewis and Clark Law School, Portland, Ore., August 2011. She works at the Oregon Department of Energy in Portland.

Mary “Kate” Kearney ’05, Ph.D., mathematics, Indiana University, Bloomington, August 2011. She is a VIGRE postdoctoral researcher at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

Anne I. Salomon ’05, J.D. magna cum laude, University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor, December 2010. She is law clerk to a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judge.

Amy E. Drake ’08, master of arts in history museum studies, Cooperstown Graduate Program, Cooperstown, N.Y., May 2011.

Valerie J. Stimac ’09, M.A., clinical psychology, University of Indianapolis, Ind., August 2011.

Lu “Maggie” Bian ’09, M.A., regional studies — East Asia, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., May 2011.

Brenna J. Curley ’09, master’s in statistics, Iowa State University, Ames, September 2011.

Marriages and UnionsCharles A. Bloomfield ’81 and Maria Valdez, Aug. 21, 2011.

Julie D. Rowe ’93 and Robert C. Fisher ’93, July 30, 2011.

Morgan M. Robertson ’93 and Beth Finzer, Sept. 18, 2010. Officiating: Neal A. Hines ’93. Attending: Elizabeth Wodzinski ’91, Michael J. Krueger ’92, Craig R. Hooper ’93, William J. Zuercher ’93, Susan E. Decker ’94, K. Allison Wickens ’94, Rebecca L. Martin ’94, and Virginia L. McDaniel ’96.

Owen Stanwood ’97The Empire Reformed: English America in the Age of the Glorious Revolution by Owen Stanwood, assistant professor of history at Boston College, tells of a forgotten revolution in English America. During the 17th century, England’s American colonies were remote, disorganized outposts with reputations for political turmoil. Colonial subjects rebelled against authority regularly, culminating in uprisings that toppled colonial governments in the wake of England’s “Glorious Revolution” in 1688–89. This book provides a narrative account that makes sense of events in the region from the Chesapeake Bay northward. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, August 2011.


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get a commission — usually 10 percent of what the bands earn — in return for scheduling shows and band accommodations.

“I work at the band’s whim,” Chavez says. “When a band calls and wants a tour, I then talk to about 40 promoters (the people who book shows for individual music venues). We provide the band with a binder that outlines their tour, city by city, club by club.”

Adams points out that the shift in band income from recording royalties to touring might be creating a more ethical and straightforward music industry. Unlike record labels, booking agencies and their bands do not make complex, long-term contracts with bands.

“It’s just a written understanding that we’ll book your shows and take 10 percent,” Adams says. “If you’re not happy with us, you’re free to leave. You’re never going to hear a band say that their booking agent jerked them into a really bad contract.”

More shows and more great touring bands also have created a golden age for lovers of live music — including Adams and Chavez. “I’m just stoked to always be able to always see live music,” Chavez says.

— Matthew Blake ’04

Hollis V. Pfitsch ’96 and Magdalen C. Kawinski, July 24, 2011.

Daniel J. Eslinger ’97 and Erin Riley, Sept. 25, 2011. He has accepted a position as head of automation at ZFX Flying Effects in Louisville, Ky.

Sarah K. Miller ’99 and Kourtney Coats, Aug. 13, 2011.

George D. Carroll ’02 and Amy Artates, Aug. 13, 2011.

Matt R. Ewing ’02 and Natalie Lynn Foster, Sept. 4, 2011.

Nora P. Gluch ’02 and Nicholas Reese, Aug. 13, 2011. Attending: Bryan K. Coy ’02, Anton C. Jones ’02, Katherine Hanck Lencioni ’02, Nicholas D. Lencioni ’02, and Elizabeth J. Hulse ’03.

E. Posey Gruener ’02 and Sarah E. Viars, Sept. 10, 2011. Attending: Emily M. Cripe ’01, Elizabeth Koch Ya’ari ’02, Jenanne C. Luse ’02, Catherine H. Mears ’03, Alice C. Anderson ’04, Nicholas K. Buess ’04, Rebecca J. Stumpf ’04, Amanda A. Davis ’04, and Ross C. Koon ’06.

Joao “John” C. Medeiros ’02 and Nicole Marie Williams, Aug. 6, 2011.

Brian H. Fritsch ’06, Felicidad G. “Fishy” Lopez ’06, Connor G. Savage ’06, James W. Fuller ’08, Colin A. Higgins ’10, Macaela M. Holmes ’10, and Rachel R. Bly ’93. Grinnell faculty and staff attending were Ellen Mease, Severin Roberts, and Shannon Geisinger.

Benjamin R. Spencer ’05 and Esther G. Gonzales, Sept. 2, 2011.

Elena R. Yesner ’06 and John S. Wepking ’06, Aug. 14, 2011.

Isabella J. Horning ’07 and Greg W. Chatterley ’09, June 18, 2011. Attending: Amanda Chatterley Griffin, ’02, Michael B. Davis ’06, Cassandra M. Donnelly ’06, Stewart E. Lane ’06, James S. “J.J.” Oliver ’06, Nathan E. Austin ’07, Amos F. Goldbaum ’07, Keegan E. Gourlie ’07, Max M. Hackmann ’07, Christopher C. Hall ’07, Carl H. Krause ’07, Andrea J. Matter ’07, Joseph P. McNertney ’07, Eric H. Schatzkin ’07,Elisabeth J. Tegeler ’07, Molly L. Thompson ’07, Benjamin I. Weyl ’07, Paul W. Wainright ’07, Elizabeth A. Ward ’07, and Sarah E. Zimmerman ’07.

Nicholas W. Moulton ’07 and Kelly Ryberg, Aug. 28, 2011.

Maury J. Noonan ’07 and Julia Dawn Veltri, Aug. 20, 2011.

Sandra Herrera ’08 and Sal Gonzalez, Sept. 10, 2011. Bridesmaids: Nikisha S. Glenn ’08, Jessica L. Starling ’08, and Cynthia Valenzuela ’09.

Lu “Maggie” Bian ’09 and Bo Gong, Oct. 15, 2011. Attending: Jaizhen “Jason” Chen ’07 and Andrew B. Yuan ’09.

Births and AdoptionsCharles A. Bloomfield ’81 and Maria Valdez, May 9, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Nina Olivia Grace Bloomfield.

Theodore “T.J.” Tedesco ’83 and Lisa Sylvester Tedesco, Aug. 19, 2010, their fourth child, second daughter, Amelia Marie Tedesco. Paternal aunt is Melina Tedesco Murphy ’85.

Abel L. Smith ’85 and Kimberly Brown Smith, Feb. 25, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Vera Elinor Smith.

Adam J.V. Noyce ’02 and S. Claire Matheny ’04, April 9, 2011. There were 52 Grinnellians attending.

Melissa M. Andrykowski ’03 and Brad Turner, Jan. 29, 2011.

Dree K. Collopy ’04 and Justin Stewart-Teitelbaum ’04, Sept. 4, 2011. Attending: Victor M. Soria ’03, Samuel G. Evans ’04, Tyler P. Katzenberg ’04, Maria O. Stanislaw ’04, DinaMarie C. Chou ’05, Audrey Coffield Soria ’05, Elizabeth C. Lay ’06, and Mary E. “Betsy” Root ’06.

Diana L. Grimes ’04 and Jason Palmer, May 28, 2011. Maids of honor: Megan Drechsel Tomson ’04 and Leanne Harris Williams ’04. Attending: Nathan S.H. Williams ’03, Lindsey C. Bulfinch ’04, Margaret L. Hainline ’04, Katherine K. Howell ’04, Jennifer Karam Kensler ’04, Jonathan A. Kensler ’04, Katharine D. Lee ’04, and Rachel F. Sandler ’04.

Jayn L. Bailey ’05 and Scott W. Chaney, Sept. 3, 2011. Attending: Jonathan H. Cell ’04, Allison Dolan Griffin ’04, Nicholas D. Liebman ’04, Kyle J. Schmidt ’04, Kathleen A. Cawthon ’06, David S. Degeest ’06, Rebecca L. Dworkin ’06,


John A. Reed ’91 and Paula Dobbyn, March 20, 2011, their second child, first son, Drew Dobbyn Reed.

Daphne Orlando ’92 and Grant Bloedow, Aug. 18, 2009, adopted Oct. 4, 2010, their second child, second son, Seung Bhin Bloedow.

Morgan M. Robertson ’93 and Beth Finzer, July 7, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Grace Aileen Robertson.

Marian Saksena Hatch ’93 and Robert W. Hatch, Jr., March 13, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Bridget Murphy Hatch.

Anna Wood Bolt ’94 and William C. Bolt, June 13, 2011, their first child, a son, William James Bolt.

Amy M. Gernon ’94 and Stephen M. Edwards, June 6, 2011, their fourth child, third daughter, Leah Gayle Edwards.

Shannon L. McGuire ’95 and Chad Perry, Feb. 7, 2011, their second child, second son, Elias McGuire Perry.

Amy Cooper Kuykendall ’97 and James Kuykendall, April 21, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Mattie Jeanne Kuykendall.

Amy E. Scott ’97 and Alexander Heilner, Jan. 4, 2011, their first child, a son, Julian Scott Heilner.

Balint Nogradi ’97 and Sarah S. Nogradi, Aug. 31, 2011, their fifth child, third son, Shalom Dovber Nogradi.

Casey C. Baker ’98 and Angela Bishop Baker ’01, June 27, 2011, their fourth child, second son, George Peregrine Baker.

Joseph H. Moon ’98 and Edith Deering, July 10, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Aubrey Lillianna Moon.

Satyendra M. Patrabansh ’98 and Marceline Rogers, April 8, 2010, their second child, first son, Alexander Neel Patrabansh. Patrabansh is senior economist at the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington, D.C.

Erin S. Peterson ’98 and Sheila Minske, Sept. 16, 2011, their first children, twins, a daughter, Summer Nicole Peterson, and a son, Joseph Milo Peterson.

Adam J. Rinehart ’98, and Sarah Zurcher Rinehart, Aug. 20, 2010, their second child, second daughter, Laura Anne Rinehart.

Ryan D. Gerling ’99 and Sarah Gerling, July 5, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Charlotte Adalynne Gerling.

Amy Reiter ’99 and Micah Stoutimore, June 9, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Elinor Rose Reiter Stoutimore.

Hormuz Batliboi ’00 and Madhavi Tandon Batliboi, Aug. 3, 2011, their second child, second son, Cyrus Tandon Batliboi.

John C. Aerni-Flessner ’01 and Lauren B. Aerni-Flessner ’04, July 23, 2011, their first child, a son, Cameron William Aerni-Flessner.

Emily Mize Robare ’01 and Paul E. Robare ’01, Aug. 7, 2001, their first child, a daughter, Annabel Patrice Robare.

Daniel M. Rothschild ’02 and Jennifer Wheeler Rothschild ’02, June 11, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Elizabeth Anne Rothschild.

Paul C. Carlson ’02 and Joa Taylor Carlson ’03, Sept. 20, 2011, their first child, a son, Harvey Wayne Carlson.

Melissa Bailey Torres ’02, and Gustavo “Gus” Torres ’03, Aug. 15, 2011, their second child, first son, Alexander Gustavo Torres.

Rashed Chowdhury ’03 and Kathryn Kiskaddon Chowdhury ’05, May 13, 2011, their first child, a son, Ibrahim Harold Chowdhury. Attendees at his naming ceremony in June included Naa Ashorkor Tetteh ’04 and Professor Harold Kasimow.

Leigh Alison Phillips ’03 and Marcus Credé, June 18, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Caroline Jutta Credé.

Han-Jong Chia ’04 and Yi-Hui Wu, Oct. 2, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Ainee Chia.

Samuel E. Jones ’05 and Diana van Schilfgaard Jones ’06, Oct. 4, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Amelia Lynn Jones.

Kevin A. Byrne ’06 and Lauren Meredith Byrne ’06, Aug. 12, 2011, their first child, a daughter, Natalie Marilyn Byrne.

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Publications, Productions, and ExhibitionsGentleman on the Prairie: Victorians in Pioneer Iowa, by Curtis A. Harnack ’49, University of Iowa Press, May 15, 2011; also previously, We Have All Gone Away, and The Attic: A Memoir.

A Space in Time, by Jenny Jacobson Egan ’49, Llumina Press, Tamarac, Fla., Dec. 13, 2010.

Words Together, Words Alone, by Alan D. Goldfarb ’52, Robertson Publishing, Los Gatos, Calif., June 17, 2011.

A Rustic’s Journey to the 21st Century, by James M. Daughton ’58, Beaver’s Pond Press, Edina, Minn., 2010.

Driving Near the Old Federal Arsenal, by Liane Ellison Norman ’59, Finishing Line Press, Georgetown, Ky., December 2011.

“My Grinnell College Years,” by Duane W. Krohnke ’61, posted at dwkcommentaries.wordpress.com, Aug. 27, 2011.

Minority Business Success: Refocusing on the American Dream, by Leonard Greenhalgh and James H. Lowry ’61, Stanford Business Books, Stanford, Calif., Feb. 28, 2011.

Untitled haiku, by Dennis D. Maulsby ’64, in Haiku Journal, available online, and several more haikus in Adventum, a literary magazine, Summer 2011.

Infectious Behavior: Brain-Immune Connections in Autism, Schizophrenia, and Dpression, by Paul H. Patterson ’65, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., Sept. 9, 2011.

The Isle of Pines (1668): Henry Neville’s Uncertain Utopia, by John S. Scheckter ’74, Ashgate Publishing Co., Aldershot, U.K., November 2011.

The God’s Wife, by Lynn A. Voedisch ’76, Fiction Studio, Stamford, Conn., Aug. 9, 2011.

“Me and the S&P,” by Sam Tanenhaus ’77, Slate online magazine, Aug. 11, 2011.

A Nation Emerges: The Mexican Revolution Revealed, an exhibit curated by Beth Ann Guynn ’78 at the Central Library, Getty Gallery, Los Angeles Public Library, Sept. 8, 2011. Presented by the Getty Research Institute and the library, the exhibition chronicles a complex, multifaceted chapter in Mexico’s history. The exhibition showcases more than 130 photographs, prints, and maps drawn from special collections of the Getty Research Institute, and also includes a selection of 20th- and 21st-century posters and prints from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

“Pivot in Perception: The Impact of the 1968 Riots on Three Baltimore Business Districts,” an essay co-authored by Deborah R. Weiner ’79 and Elizabeth M. Nix, in Baltimore ’68: Riots and Rebirth in an American City, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, June 17, 2011.

“Innovative Comparison of Transient Ignition Temperature at the Booster Interface, New Stainless Steel Pyrovalve Primer Chamber Assembly ‘V’ (PCA) Design versus the Current Aluminum ‘Y’ PCA Design,” a paper co-authored by Ken L. Johnson ’80, presented to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Joint Propulsion Conference in San Diego, July 31, 2011.

The Body Broken: Medieval Europe 1300–1520, by Charles F. Briggs ’83, Routledge, London and New York, Nov. 30, 2010.

Three Novellas, by Cameron H. Chambers ’84, iUniverse Publishing, Bloomington, Ind., Aug. 29, 2011.

Grinnell College track and cross-country coach Dick Young died July 24. He coached at Grinnell from 1958 to 1966, when the College won four straight years of conference championships in both indoor and outdoor track. The College has named its major spring track event the Dick Young Classic in his honor. In 2002 he was inducted into Grinnell’s Athletic Hall of Fame. Young left Grinnell for Rio Hondo Community College,

Whittier, Calif., where he coached until he retired in 1991.Known for his uncompromising standards and rigorous expectations,

“Coach Young was given the nickname “Killer” by the football players, as he oversaw their calisthenics” says Keith Kester ’61. “One of the first things Coach Young had us do that first fall was make our weights for conditioning out of a metal bar and two empty paint cans into which we stuck the metal bars, and poured in concrete.”

Ray Obermiller, professor emeritus of physical education, says Young led by example.

“The first cross-country practice of the fall, he would lead the men through the course,” he says. “He demanded a lot, but he demanded the same of himself. He was one of the most knowledgeable track coaches I have ever known, and a shining example of physical conditioning.”

Once, Young decided to handle pain in his side by “running it off,” resulting in a burst appendix. George Drake ’56, professor emeritus of history and a visiting instructor at the time, took over coaching duties while Young recovered. He particularly remembers Young’s “absolute integrity. With Dick, what you saw was what you got,” he says.

Jeri M. Langham ’65 says, “He cared about every member of his teams from the most to least talented. His goal was to teach us how to dig deep and reach our potentials, whatever they may be.”

“He was an inspiration to never give up, even when times are tough,” says Peter Kranz ’63. “He helped me get a graduate assistant coaching position when I first got to graduate school. When I lecture my graduate students on excellence and hard work, his ghost is in the classroom smiling. He was never critical, always supportive. Many of his track men are personally and professionally successful today due to his influence. Coach Young was more than a track coach. He was a life coach.”


Remembering Track Coach Dick Young


Feeding Time, poems by Emily W. Scudder ’85, Pecan Grove Press, San Antonio, Texas, July 2011.

“Minimum defense budget recipe for disaster,” by Lindsey R. Neas ’86, The Washington Times commentary section, Feb. 22, 2011.

“The Names of All Things,” by W. Grant Faulkner ’87, Southwest Review, 96(3), October 2011.

In White Kids: Language, Race, and Styles of Youth Identity, by Mary Bucholtz ’90, Cambridge University Press, U.K., 2011. The book investigates how white teenagers use language to display identities based on race and youth culture.

A Taste of the Maritimes: Local, Seasonal, Recipes the Whole Year Round, by Elisabeth B. Bailey ’94, Nimbus Publications, Halifax, Nova Scotia, October 2011.

Blown Away, monotypes by Tara Nelson Mhella ’95, an exhibition at the Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill, N.C., presented by the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill, June 12–July 3, 2011.

“NCAA Must Admit Big-Time College Football Is Big Business,” by Jason B. Wolf ’95, Sports Business Journal, June 13, 2011. Also, “In Baseball’s Best Interest? A Discussion of the October 2010 MLBPA Regulations Governing Player Agents,” by Darren A. Heitner and Jason B. Wolf ’95, Virginia Sports and Entertainment Law Journal, Spring 2011.

The Empire Reformed: English America in the Age of the Glorious Revolution, by Owen C. Stanwood ’97, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, Aug. 5, 2011.

“Hidden America: Children of the Plains,” a segment of 20/20 Special with Diane Sawyer, edited by Elissa Colter Stohler ’00, aired Oct. 14, 2011.

“Muslim Opposition to the War in Afghanistan: The Case(s) of Bangladesh and Turkey,” by Rashed Chowdhury ’03, in War, Human Dignity, and Nation Building: Theological Perspectives on Canada’s Role in Afghanistan, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K., 2010.

“The Wrap Up of Wrap-Ups? Owner-Controlled Insurance Programs and the Exclusive Remedy Defense,” by Chad G. Marzen ’05, Drake Law Review, Spring 2011.

Former Grinnell College President A. Richard Turner died on Friday, Sept. 9, 2011, at the age of 79, following a battle with cancer. He was president of Grinnell College from 1975 to 1979. His inaugural address recommitted the College to “an ongoing examination of the nature of truth,” “flexibility of spirit,” and the development of “men and women who … are broad-gauged enough to adjust to changing circumstances while maintaining a humane perspective.”

These words might describe Turner’s life, calling, and character as well. Turner was born in New Bedford, Mass., in 1932 and received

bachelor’s, master of fine arts, and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University. He was a Fulbright scholar. Before coming to Grinnell, he was an instructor in fine arts at the University of Michigan, professor of art and archaeology at Princeton University, and dean of the faculty and professor of fine arts at Middlebury College in Vermont. Following his Grinnell presidency, he finished his career at New York University,

In Memoriam: Former Grinnell College President A. Richard Turnerwhere he held a number of positions, including director of the Institute of Fine Arts, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, professor of fine arts, director of the New York Institute of Humanities, and Paulette Goddard professor chair in arts and humanities.

Turner was a Leonardo da Vinci scholar, an expert on the Florentine Renaissance, and the author of a number of books, including Vision of Landscape in Renaissance Italy; Art of Florence; Inventing Leonardo; Renaissance Florence: The Invention of a New Art; and La Pietra: Florence, a Family, and a Villa.

He was very active in a number of organizations, serving on the board of directors of the New Jersey Audubon Society and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance. He was a member of the College Art Association, the Century Association, Phi Beta Kappa, and Princeton Project 55.

Photography and birding were two of Turner’s greatest passions. He honed his skills as an amateur photographer over the years and was an avid bird watcher and devoted to the Cape May Bird Observatory, where he volunteered countless hours and made many friends.

In addition to Jane, his wife of 56 years, he is survived by his sons, Louis of Minneapolis and David of Sarasota, Fla.; a sister, Betsy Turner of Newfoundland, Pa.; six grandchildren; and two stepgrandchildren.


In MemoriamSome alumni and friends inquire about making a memorial gift. If you would like to do so, please call 866-850-1846.

Steve Jobs ‘way out ahead … in his thinking’His was the first color monitor on campus, attached to an Apple 2E and shipped by Steve Jobs himself. So recalls Waldo Walker, professor emeritus of biology and former executive vice president of the College, who shared stories after Jobs died in early October.

The year was 1980, and Robert N. Noyce ’49, also a trustee and co-founder of Intel Corp., had convinced his friend Jobs, only 25 at the time, to join the Grinnell College Board of Trustees. “Bob wanted academic computing at Grinnell to come to the top, and he knew even then that Jobs was a genius,” Walker said. Noyce worked in Silicon Valley, across the street from the young Apple Inc. founder.

“After Steve was on the board, he walked into my office in Nollen House and said, ‘Where’s your computer?’ When I told him I didn’t have one, he said, ‘you do now,’ and ordered one for me and one for George [Drake, president of the College at the time],” Walker recalled.

“Steve wanted to be a member of the finance committee because, he said, ‘that’s the power committee.’ During an early meeting of the finance committee — which included philanthropists Warren Buffett, Joe Rosenfield ’25, and Samuel Rosenthal —Jobs suggested that Grinnell “take money out of securities and invest in gold.” The businessmen let the young genius know they intended to remain

securities investors. Walker recalls that Jobs then shifted his interests to the campus computer center and the impending renovation of Burling Library.

“Steve declared that the ‘day of the book was over’ and that we should not waste money on libraries,” George Drake said in a recent Des Moines Register article. “He was way out ahead of most people in his thinking.”

Jobs was very active for the first two of his eight years on the board from 1980 to 1988. His trips to campus often included visits to residence halls; in fact, before he agreed to join the board, he spent a couple of nights on campus while on his way to Wall Street to take Apple public.

Much was written at the time of Jobs’ passing, and one article in The Wall Street Journal summarized the special bond between Noyce and Jobs: “Many students of Silicon Valley history know that one of the most influential figures before Steve Jobs was Bob Noyce. Fewer of them know about the relationship between the two men. … Though he didn’t attain the global fame of Jobs, Noyce possessed the same wide-ranging curiosity about science, history, and art. And he also believed in pushing the boundaries of idea and engineering even as he aged, just like Jobs.” Both share a place in Grinnell history.

— Cindy Deppe

Catherine “Kitty” Turner Phillips ’30, Santa Barbara, Calif., Aug. 17, 2011.

Ellet H. Drake ’35, Melbourne, Fla., July 2, 2010.

Leona Barth Arnold ’39, Newville, Pa., Feb. 24, 2011. She is survived by her son, Arthur P. Arnold ’67.

Peggy “Francelyn” Arnold ’39, La Crosse, Wis., June 20, 2011.

Dorothy Hunzelman Tibbs ’39, Canton, Conn., April 3, 2011.

Martha Willis Vance ’39, Macomb, Ill., Sept. 29, 2010.

Ruth Maassen Baron ’40, Harlan, Iowa, Dec. 14, 2010.

G. Robert Artely ’41, Akron, Ohio, Oct. 21, 2011.

Alice Wilson Fennema ’41, Urbandale, Iowa, April 17, 2011.

Harriet Whitehead Schutte ’42, Kahoka, Mo., March 18, 2011.

Robert N. Spangard ’43, Bermuda Run, N.C., June 7, 2011.

Kenneth N. Stabeck ’43, Holmes Beach, Fla., Sept. 4, 2010.

Richard A. Thorsen ’43, Mason City, Iowa, Aug. 3, 2010.

Roger L. Hasek ’44, Sioux City, Iowa, April 7, 2011.

Eleanor Franklin Putnam ’44, Cockeysville, Md., July 18, 2011.

Donna Ballou Benson ’45, Chagrin Falls, Ohio, July 20, 2011. She is survived by her daughter, Gail Benson Hockom ’77.

Jean Merrick Klingelhofer ’45, Sacramento, Calif., Sept. 22, 2011.

Phyllis Brandau Mangold ’45, Rockville, Md., Jan. 31, 2011.

Rosamond Sapp Diggs ’46, Missoula, Mont., Sept. 2, 2011.

Robert H. Leitner ’47, Schaumburg, Ill., Aug. 3, 2011. Survivors include his wife, Irene Marley Leitner ’49.

Betty Johnson Rafferty ’47, Montezuma, Iowa, March 4, 2011.

Robert L. Fairchild ’48, Sun City, Calif., Dec. 27, 2010.

Nancy Theilgaard Watts ’48, Winchester, Mass., April 4, 2011. She received an Alumni Award in 1953.

Max E. Bacon ’49, Harlan, Calif., July 7, 2010.

Maynard “Ken” Kenyon ’49, Reinbeck, Iowa, March 28, 2011. Survivors include his sisters, Natalie Kenyon Livergood ’45 and Shirley Kenyon Dyson ’48.

John M. Willis ’49, St. Louis, Dec. 4, 2010.

Leroy E. Amendt ’50, Murrieta, Calif., Jan. 24, 2011.

Victor F. Burkhardt ’50, Villa Park, Ill., May 24, 2011.

Henry M. Bussey ’50, San Antonio, Feb. 9, 2011.

Winter G. Ensign ’50, Petaluma, Calif., March 22, 2011.

Claire Wildeman Ingels ’51, Carmichael, Calif., May 9, 2010.

Charles W. Hinman ’51, Tucson, Ariz., March 27, 2011.

Arthur J. Walstrom ’51, Glenview, Ill., Oct. 6, 2011.

Robert G. Dennler ’52, Naperville, Ill., May 20, 2011.

Margaret Hyden Parker ’52, Tuscola, Ill., March 17, 2011.


webextra! Visit The Grinnell Magazine online at www.grinnell.edu/magextras to read about “Unforgettable Grinnellians” — tributes to deceased friends and family written by their fellow Grinnellians. You can submit your own original tribute to [email protected].

W. David Baker ’53, Decorah, Iowa, April 5, 2011.

Joan Floback Davis ’53, Maple Plain, Minn., May 29, 2011.

Nancy Nattemer Way ’53, Milton, N.H., Aug. 7, 2011.

Shelby Spelman Williamson ’53, Atascadero, Calif., Aug. 27, 2010.

Esta Wetterholm Helpenstell ’54, Rock Island, Ill., Aug. 5, 2011. Survivors include her husband, Franz “Bud” Helpenstell ’55 and her sister, Mary Wetterholm McCoy ’57.

Charles M. Lang, Jr. ’54, Lebanon, Ohio, June 3, 2011.

Ronald N. Moitzfield ’54, Detroit Lakes, Minn., May 29, 2011.

B. Jean Leinhauser ’55, San Diego, June 12, 2011. She is survived by her sister, Caroline Leinhauser Oster ’53.

Richard H. Knowles ’56, Memphis, Tenn., Dec. 7, 2010.

Donald J. Fremming ’57, San Antonio, Sept. 11, 2010.

Albert L. Sampson ’58, Seattle, Aug. 26, 2011.

Francis A. Kennedy ’59, Northbrook, Ill., July 29, 2010.

M. Frances Confer Ozalas ’60, Grafton, W.Va., March 20, 2010.

John C. Wassom ’61, Bowling Green, Ky., July 26, 2011.

Sarah Miles Gerken ’64, Millbrae, Calif., Nov. 5, 2010.

Donna Edwards Payne ’65, Walnut Creek, Calif., April 3, 2010.

Joe D. Thompson ’65, Kewanee, Ill., Sept. 2, 2011.

John V. B. Raz ’68, Chicago, July 25, 2011.

Paul A. Lewis ’71, Peoria, Ill., Sept. 17, 2011. He is survived by his brother, Scott P. Lewis ’78.

William F. Zabel ’73, Ashland, Neb., Sept. 18, 2011. Survivors include his wife, Margaret “Marnie” Fox Zabel ’75, and his brothers James A. Zabel ’67 and Robert H. Zabel ’69.

Russell N. McGregor ’74, Denver, April 8, 2011.

Thomas A. Rehfeld ’78, Albuquerque, N.M., Sept. 8, 2011.

Frederick R. Collins ’80, Manley, Neb., Aug. 20, 2010.

Pavle Dudukovski ’04, Chicago, Feb. 8, 2011. He is survived by his brother, Petar Dudukovski ’04.

Deborah Lantz Steiner, daughter-in-law of Edward A. Steiner, for whom Steiner Hall is named, died on Oct. 27 at the age of 103. She was a member of a family with a connection to Grinnell that began in 1903, when Edward became the Rand Chair of Applied Christianity, a position he held until 1941. His son, Richard M. Steiner ’24, Deborah’s husband, was awarded an honorary degree by Grinnell in 1944. He passed away in 1975. Survivors include her sons Henry-York Steiner ’56 and David E. Steiner ’57, grandson Henry-York Steiner II ’84, and great- granddaughter Deborah E. Berk ’12.

In Memoriam: Trustee Elizabeth KruidenierWe are saddened to announce the death of former trustee and well-known Iowa philanthropist, activist, and lawyer Elizabeth Kruidenier, who died Oct. 19 at her home in Des Moines, after being diagnosed with cancer in July. Kruidenier joined Grinnell’s Board of Trustees in 1968. Her husband David also served on the board intermittently from 1953 until his death in 2006. Trustees of the Gardner and Florence Call Cowles Foundation, the Kruideniers were also instrumental

in seeding the teaching of Chinese at Grinnell in the 1980s; the program was initially called the Cowles-Kruidenier Chinese Studies Program.

Kruidenier’s lifelong commitment to social activism and community improvement led her at age 42 to enroll at Drake Law School, graduating in 1973. In the 1980s she became a senior law partner of Alfredo Parrish, forming the Parrish Kruidenier law firm. She continued to commute to her law office until two months before her death. Parrish told the Des Moines Register, “Her commitment to helping poor people

never dimmed. It was just her mission: If someone had a hard luck story, she was there with her legal skills, ingenuity, and sheer brain power.” She was a founding member of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.

Her commitment to social justice, according to Life Trustee Carolyn Swartz Bucksbaum ’51, who served with Elizabeth Kruidenier on the board, was her link to Grinnell College. “The socially progressive aspect of Grinnell’s history attracted her and her husband to become strong supporters of the college.” says Bucksbaum. Kruidenier’s daughter Lisa told Register reporter Kyle Munson how her mother used to zip around their neighborhood on a Vespa motor scooter with plastic flowers stuck in her helmet. She was also physically active, trekking in the Himalayas and bicycling across China.

The fruits of the Kruideniers’ generosity are evident in Des Moines, including the renovation of Gray’s Lake Park, several fine and performing-arts projects, the new Des Moines Public Library, and the Blank Park Zoo. The education center and library at Planned Parenthood of Iowa are named in their honor. The Krudeniers were consistently generous donors to the College, including substantial support for the Bucksbaum Fine Arts Center and scholarship funds.

—Richard Cleaver ’75

An interactive virtual space in which alumni, students, faculty, and staff can all interact with each other is a wonderful idea. Alumni are deeply unhappy with The Loggia.

Think about bringing in alumni from the “real world” as teachers to have the authority to say “I was young and idealistic like you once, but then I realized that I lacked some essential skills for the work force that I would like to share with you.” I think it would be an excellent networking opportunity for students, and I bet many alumni would enjoy sharing their knowledge and experiences.

A great many Grinnell alumni are academics. Consider using those alumni as outside readers or evaluators for senior honors or research projects. It would be a wonderful way to connect a student to an alumnae/us in her own field, and a good way to get alumni more interested in the workings of the College. I don’t think the logistics would be a barrier. With a list of available and willing alums at hand, the Grinnell student could select a name, make contact, and establish a relationship well in advance of the need for assessment.

Consider having a career adviser for every student, much like there’s an academic adviser; it could be an alum chosen based on the student’s interests. Grinnell could use this program in its sales pitch to prospective students: The Grinnell family is tightly knit and takes care of its own; Grinnell provides not just an excellent liberal arts education but also an excellent program for placing its students in good jobs.

Have an evening when students choose three or so alumni in fields of their interest to call for career advice/Q&A. Give the alums a heads up that they may be called, as we do for phone-a-thon, so they are open to sharing their experiences and advice.

Establish mandatory student/alumni pairing from beginning of senior year. Qualified, volunteer alumni are paired with students based on the student’s postgrad interest (grad school, business, nonprofit, etc.); the alum does initial outreach to chat through whatever help student needs — grad school apps, talking through industry/geographic job targets, etc. Include an option for interested juniors to start the relationship early.

Offer alums the opportunity to take classes by Grinnell profs online for a set fee. The courses could be short, perhaps designed to review basics or to explore a particular topic in depth.

Poll alumni about what they’d like to contribute back to the College.

Set up a campus webcam. I get nostalgic and would love to see fall come over the campus, to gaze towards Burling, to watch people ice skate. It would be very cheap to implement, and I think would create a greater bonding experience. Also, it would be wonderful for prospective students!

There’s still time! Share your suggestions about any of the strategic plan topics, including distinctiveness, teaching and learning, enrollment, postgraduation success, and alumni engagement. Email [email protected], or visit www.grinnell.edu/future. At this webpage, you can also read more comments by other alumni and Grinnell College and town community members.

Engage Me!The College recently asked alumni how it could best use the talents, experience, enthusiasm, and resources of alumni. Here (at times edited for space, clarity, and style) are a few suggestions:

Alumni Musings

G r i n n e l l C o l l e G e

The Grinnell MagazineGrinnell College1026 Park StreetGrinnell, Iowa 50112

ISSN 1539-0950

Periodicals

Iowa View

A sculptor carves ice in the Rosenfield Center courtyard. Photo: Ben Brewer ’11

G r i n n e l l C o l l e G e

The Grinnell MagazineGrinnell College1026 Park StreetGrinnell, Iowa 50112

ISSN 1539-0950

Periodicals

Iowa View

A sculptor carves ice in the Rosenfield Center courtyard. Photo: Ben Brewer ’11

Documents

Beautiful Intense Fun Academic Excellent...Download this issue! The Grinnell Magazine is now available online in .pdf form Departments Student Musings..... inside front Things I Need